About this work
The scene is one of pastoral ease and quiet authority: George Washington, walking stick in hand, engages two men bowling on the green in front of his Mount Vernon estate, while a small audience of two men and three women looks on from the right. Hassam renders the composition in the horizontal format natural to the landscape — a plate measuring 8¼ by 13¼ inches — allowing the viewer's eye to move unhurried across the lawn, the figures, and the columned architecture beyond. Working entirely in the economy of etched line, Hassam coaxes both light and air from the copper plate: the open sky, the cropped trees framing the scene, and the relaxed groupings of figures all lend the image a convincing sense of a warm afternoon's leisure. The etched line here is confident but never labored, capturing gesture and costume with the draftsman's precision that underpinned Hassam's entire artistic formation.
The print was published in 1932 as part of *The Bicentennial Pageant of George Washington* — a portfolio issued in cooperation with the United States George Washington Bicentennial Commission — printed in England on laid paper watermarked with Washington's monogram and coat of arms, in an edition of 1,000. Originally commissioned by private investors, each artist was asked to complete a piece relating to Washington's private and public life.
The suite comprised twenty etchings illustrating events in Washington's life, edited by John Taylor Arms. For Hassam, this commission arrived at the very end of a remarkable graphic career: it was not until 1915, at the age of fifty-six, that he seriously turned his attention to printmaking, yet during the last two decades of his life he created an impressive graphic legacy numbering 380 etchings and 45 lithographs. The cancelled-plate impression held today in the Smithsonian American Art Museum confirms the work's place in public collections, underscoring its documentary and artistic significance as one of Hassam's final major print commissions.
As wall art, this etching suits rooms that value restraint and historical weight in equal measure — a study lined with books, a paneled entryway, or a dining room with dark wood furniture and warm lamplight. The horizontal sweep of the composition anchors a wall without overwhelming it, and the monochromatic palette of the etching means it reads cleanly against almost any tone. It speaks to the collector drawn to the intersection of American history and artistic craft — someone who finds as much pleasure in the quality of a line as in the subject it describes. There is nothing ceremonial or stiff about it; Hassam chose to depict Washington not on the battlefield or at the lectern, but at ease on his own lawn, and that choice gives the print an intimacy that portraits of the Founders rarely achieve.
