Enoch G. Gridley
Pater Patriae

Public Domain

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Artist Enoch G. Gridley American, active c. 1800–1818

Artistafter John Coles, Jr.American, 1776/1780–1854

CultureAmerican

Titles

Pater Patriae

Datec. 1800

Probable placeNew York , New York, United States

Probable placePhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States

MediumStipple and line engraving with etching on wove paper

DimensionsImage: 13 1/16 × 8 7/8 in. (33.1 × 22.6 cm)
Sheet (irregular): 13 15/16 × 9 3/4 in. (35.4 × 24.8 cm)

Credit LineThe Bayou Bend Collection, museum purchase funded by the family and friends of Dr. Robert A. McClure

Object numberB.96.5

Not on view

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Department

Bayou Bend

Object Type

PRINTS

Description

Americans marked the death of George Washington with a variety of mourning imagery, including prints and schoolgirl embroideries based on print prototypes (B.86.13). This rare engraving, based on a lost painting by John Coles, Jr., incorporates iconography appropriate to the new nation: a liberty cap, a mourning Columbia, and a banner citing Washington’s military victories. The oval image of Washington is based on Edward Savage’s life portrait of 1792.

Related examples: Brown University, Providence; Historic Deerfield; MFA, Boston; MMA; Winterthur (Fowble 1987, p. 461, no. 325). Another is illustrated in Deutsch 1977, p. 325.

Book excerpt: David B. Warren, Michael K. Brown, Elizabeth Ann Coleman, and Emily Ballew Neff. American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection. Houston: Princeton Univ. Press, 1998.

Provenance[The Old Print Gallery, Washington, D.C.]; purchased by MFAH, 1996.
Exhibition History"Radicals and Revolutionaries: America's Founding Fathers," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, March 10–May 28, 2018.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

Inscribed: see Fowble 1987, p. 461, no. 325

[no marks]

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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