George Washington (The Munro-Lenox Portrait), c. 1800

Oil on canvas; 95 x 64 in. (241.3 x 162.6 cm). The New York Public Library, New York, NY.

This is the first of four paintings in which Stuart revises the original Lansdowne Portrait. Washington’s pose is no longer an oratorical one, but one where he stands erect with his hand touching the document on the table. Also his body is now proportional — taller, thinner, truer to Washington’s actual physique.

Stuart completed three more copies like this: two for the state of Rhode Island and one for the state of Connecticut.

[George] Mason’s obvious legacy is in his contribution to America’s founding documents: the Declaration of Independence through the Virginia Declaration of Rights, the Constitution through his role at the Philadelphia Convention, and the Bill of Rights through his dogged opposition to a Constitution without one. Mason may have taken a circumscribed view of the rights he advocated — limiting the right of representation to white men or restricting freedom of the press to a ban on prior restraint — but he put words on paper that could be given more expansive meanings by later generations.

— Jeff Broadwater

George Mason: Forgotten Founder (2006)