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Oil on canvas; 36 x 28 in. (91.4 x 71.1 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY.
Painted in the London studio of Benjamin West. Washington’s slave-valet, Billy Lee (c. 1750–1828), is depicted in the background right.
George Washington, 1780
In a land where horsemanship was often men’s touchiest point of pride, Jefferson had to admit he never saw Washington’s like for grace and control in the saddle. A froniter runner and Indian wrestler — his friend George Mercer described his frame as padded with well-developed muscles
— Washington had by 1774 refined mere energy down to a grace of least movement, the higher athleticism of the dance. And he danced well.
Inventing America: Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence (1978)