WASHINGTON — For more than three decades, the imposing, life-size portrait of George Washington has presided over the entrance of the National Portrait Gallery here--one hand graciously extended toward the tourists who passed through the museum's grand foyer.
Now the painting, which has been on loan, could be headed for the auction block--with a $20-million price tag attached.
The British owner of the 1796 portrait has notified the gallery that he wants to sell it. So officials have mounted a nationwide search for a benefactor to donate the money, thus ensuring that the painting will remain on public display at the museum, which is part of the Smithsonian Institution.
That's why Marc Pachter, the gallery's director, is in Los Angeles this week.
"My instinct is that the person who is going to do this for the nation is going to be from the West," Pachter said. "It just captures the imagination of Westerners."
The Gilbert Stuart painting is one of the most reproduced images of the nation's first president. Replicas can be seen at the White House, in the Capitol rotunda, in statehouses across the nation and in countless textbooks.
"I believe that it is as important to America as the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, because it is a visual representation," Pachter said. "There are no photographs of this great leader, so it sets forever the history of George Washington."
The work was commissioned by Sen. William Bingham of Pennsylvania as a gift to the Marquis of Lansdowne, and the painting subsequently became known as the Lansdowne portrait.
It was displayed for many years in England and Scotland before descendants of the marquis loaned the painting to the Smithsonian in 1968, when museum officials opened the National Portrait Gallery. The portrait remained there until early last year, when the gallery closed for renovations.
It is temporarily on display in the Smithsonian's Museum of American History. Upon completion of the portrait gallery renovation--set for 2004--the painting is set to be the museum's "crown jewel," Pachter said.
For now, however, its owner--the 33-year-old Lord Dalmeny, a descendant of the earl--is in the market for a buyer.
"I can't shut the door any longer for people looking to buy it," Dalmeny recently told the London Times. "It represents a very large part of my family's assets, and I can't keep saying no."
