American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century (A ^APublication of the National Gallery of Art, Washington)

The National Gallery's collection of eighteenth-century American paintings includes some of its greatest treasures and most beloved national icons. John Singleton Copley's Watson and the Shark, Gilbert Stuart's The Skater (Portrait of William Granti) and George Washington (Vaughan portrait)--as well as his portraits of the first five presidents of the United States, the so-called Gibbs-Coolidge portraits--and Edward Savage's Washington Family. Ellen G. Miles, curator of painting and sculpture at the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, presents new research culled from letters, wills, and other previously unpublished documents that offer a fresh perspective on the artists and sitters, as well as new insight into the paintings. (This publication is made possible by a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation).