Portrait of George Washington, Circa 1790,
by American Artist Charles Peale Polk to debut July 4 

YORKTOWN, Va., July 2, 2025 — In time for Independence Day and the one-year countdown to America’s 250th anniversary, a circa-1790 portrait of George Washington by American artist Charles Peale Polk will go on permanent exhibit on July 4 at the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown.

The portrait — depicting Washington as commander-in-chief and victor of the Battle of Princeton on January 3, 1777 — will be prominently displayed in the Declaration of Independence rotunda in a section featuring material culture of officers and commanders of the Revolutionary War.

It joins approximately 500 period objects at the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown to tell the full story of the Revolution and the shaping of the nation through the personal stories of ordinary citizens and soldiers in extraordinary times. The museum will mark its 10-year anniversary in 2026 and continues a legacy that began 50 years ago with the opening of the Yorktown Victory Center for the 1976 Bicentennial.

The new portrait is significant, not only in storytelling at the time of our nation’s founding, but a robust addition to the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation collection.

“Over the tough years of fighting the Revolutionary War, General George Washington acquired his leadership skills and became the consummate master of strategic planning and military operations — he was the indispensable man of the moment,” said Senior Curator Sarah Meschutt, Ph.D. The addition of the Washington portrait is “key to expanding our collections to gather impressive paintings that will drive the themes of American resilience and patriotism, and this portrait fits perfectly with that goal.”

As an icon of American history, George Washington symbolizes many things to many people, and for well over 200 years, has been represented in paintings, prints, sculpture, decorative objects and other artistic media.

The new portrait is one of several Washington encounters sprinkled throughout the immersive history museum, from a seated sculpture greeting visitors outside the main entrance, depictions in the “Liberty Fever” and “Siege at Yorktown” films, to the life-size cast plaster statue by William James Hubard of Washington that once graced the Hall of Representatives in the U.S. Capitol. Outdoors, living-history interpreters share Washington’s military tactics in a re-creation of a Continental Army encampment.

About the Washington Portrait & Charles Peale Polk

In this portrait of George Washington (1732-1799), Charles Peale Polk (1767-1822) portrays the general as the victor of the Battle of Princeton in 1777. Early in the Revolution, Washington was appointed by Congress as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. Their victory at Princeton was a triumph for Washington and stirred American patriotic morale at a critical moment in the war. Polk depicts Washington as an imposing uniformed figure holding a sword and large black hat, while patriot soldiers in the background relax in the American encampments outside the city.

Polk typically used the painterly devices that characterize Charles Willson Peale’s portraits of George Washington. Peale had adopted Polk, his nephew, when he was orphaned as a child in 1777. He trained Polk in his Philadelphia studio. There, in 1787, Charles Willson Peale had a life sitting from the general and completed the iconic “Convention Portrait” that inspired this painting.

The unsigned portrait of George Washington at Princeton, executed in oils on canvas and measuring approximately 32-by-25 inches in a gilded frame, was previously held in a private collection in Portugal before resurfacing in America three years ago and authenticated by Linda Crocker Simmons, former curator of American paintings at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The painting was not known to Simmons and other scholars when curating the 1981 Corcoran exhibition, “Charles Peale Polk, 1767-1822, A Limner and His Likenesses.”

About the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown

Open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown, along with its museum shop and café, is located on 200 Water Street (Route 1020) in Yorktown. Parking at the museum is free. Admission is $20.00 for adults, $10.00 for youth ages 6-12 and free for ages 5 and under. A value-priced combination ticket is available with Jamestown Settlement, a museum of 17th-century Virginia. Residents of York County, James City County and the City of Williamsburg, including William & Mary students, receive complimentary admission with proof of residency. Tickets are available online or in person at both museums.

A commemorative partner of the Virginia American Revolution 250 Commission marking the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the museum is administered by the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, an educational agency of the Commonwealth of Virginia accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.

For more information, visit jyfmuseums.org.

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See the Washington portrait at the Liberty Celebration on July 4. 

Media Contact 
Tracy Perkins, tracy.perkins@jyf.virginia.gov or (757) 253-4114