The most inadvertently prophetic words that Adams ever uttered were his last: Thomas Jefferson survives.
For it was the Jeffersonian image that broke free of the aggregated anonymity, the founders
or the fathers,
and eventually ascended into heaven with Washington. During the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Jeffersonian legacy became the most adaptable and all-purpose political touchstone in American political history.
Charles Willson Peale (1741—1827)
Oil on canvas; 91.4 x 71.1 x 2.5cm (36 x 28 x 1 in). National Portrait Gallery (Smithsonian), Washington, DC.
Oil on canvas; 49 7/8 x 39 3/4 in. (126.4 x 101 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY.
Oil on canvas. Historical Society of Pennsylvania Collection, Philadelphia History Museum at the Atwater Kent, Philadelphia, PA.
Oil on canvas. Independence National Historical Park, Portrait Collection (Second Bank of the United States), Philadelphia, PA.
Oil on canvas; height: 124.46 cm (49 in), width: 99.06 cm (39 in). Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.
Oil on canvas. The Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD.
Oil on canvas; 50 x 40-1/2 in. Private collection.
Oil on canvas; 36 13/16 x 32 1/16 inches (93.5 x 81.4 cm). Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA.
Oil on canvas; 86 1/2" x 56 3/4". Maryland State Art Collection, Annapolis, MD.
Oil on canvas. Washington and Lee University, Lexington, VA.
Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams (1993)