Ultimately, this inattention may have been a result of the way the White House itself was viewed--as a home, not as a public building. Since the early 19th century the Executive Mansion has mirrored democratic attitudes toward domestic fashion and decoration, making a self-conscious departure from the grander tradition of the great state residences of the Old World.
In 1817, during the
Monroe Administration, the son of Tobias Lear,
Washington's secretary, sold the government marble busts
representing Washington and two figures closely associated with the New
World: Christopher Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci (at upper left).
Yet inventories taken in the first half of the 19th century document how
few examples of the fine arts were then in the White House. The
inventories reveal the government's modest response to the lofty aspirations
of John Trumbull and others: an engraving (see previous page), most likely
after Trumbull's painting The Declaration of
Independence, 4 July 1776 (Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven),
and two anonymous panoramas of Niagara Falls, which was
widely considered the country's greatest natural
wonder.
Following its establishment as the nation's capital city, Washington
D.C. grew steadily and after the mid-nineteenth century began to attract
more American painters, becoming a center of artistic
activity. In 1858 artists founded a National Art Association to encourage
government support for the arts. The year 1860 witnessed the founding of
a National Gallery and School of Arts, a short lived organization that
sponsored lectures and annual exhibitions. Painters and sculptors were also
drawn to the city by federal building projects, by
the establishment of the Smithsonian Institution, and by the United States
government's involvement in western exploration.
George P. A. Healy arrived on the Washington scene in the midst of this
new period of activity when Congress commissioned him in 1857 to paint
a series of presidential portraits. The series was the first effort to
obtain for the White House a visual record of its prior inhabitants.
Healy had just returned from Paris, where he had achieved a
significant reputation and won the patronage of Louis Philippe,
Citizen King of the French, and Lewis Cass, American minister to France.
A sophisticated artist accustomed to mingling with politicians,
diplomats, and royalty, Healy had already painted
such American notables as Andrew
Jackson, Henry Clay, and John C. Calhoun. In 1842 he had worked in
the White House, making a copy of Stuart's
Washington for Louis Philippe, and he had already met and even
painted some former Presidents whose likenesses were still needed for the
White House. In just a few years Healy completed portraits of
John Quincy Adams,
Martin Van Buren,
John Tyler (at left)
James K. Polk, Millard Fillmore, and
Franklin Pierce (at right).
The series was an imposing one. Healy's Presidents were portrayed in the grand manner: full length, standing or seated, surrounded by opulent accessories, their gestures commanding and their demeanor grave. The artist's work was interrupted by the Civil War, however, and his unframed paintings were temporarily relegated to the attic.