This watercolor miniature of Martha Washington was executed by James Peale near the end of Martha’s time as First Lady. She is portrayed at sixty-five, and her lively expression gives the portrait a lifelike characteristic. The reverse side…

After painting miniatures of Martha Washington and her children four years earlier, Charles Willson Peale was commissioned by Martha to portray her husband in a miniature. George was at the front and thus could not sit for the portrait, so Peale…

Martha Washington’s daughter Patsy was sixteen when this miniature portrait was painted by Charles Willson Peale. Patsy suffered from what was probably epilepsy, and a year after this portrait was executed would die as the result of a seizure…

This miniature portrait, painted in 1772 by Charles Willson Peale, is the earliest depiction of Martha after her marriage to George Washington and is a rare depiction painted before Washington’s presidential years. She is 41 years old at the…

This miniature portrait of John Parke (Jacky) Custis was executed by Charles Willson Peale. Jacky brought the painter with him to Mount Vernon when returning home from his studies in Annapolis. Jacky was eighteen when this portrait was painted. …

In the mid-1790s, Dutch merchant Andreas Everardus van Braam Houckgeest designed a Chinese porcelain service specifically to present as a gift to First Lady Martha Washington. This cup and saucer is one of the few remaining pieces of the service. …

This saucepan would have been used by Mount Vernon’s kitchen slaves to prepare meals for the Washingtons and their guests. Made of copper, the saucepan is lined with tin to avoid the distinctive metallic taste imparted to food by copper…

Despite accepting the generalship of the Continental Army, George Washington longed to return to Mount Vernon and private life with his wife throughout the Revolutionary War. This is probably one reason that Martha Washington traveled to the…

This basket was probably purchased for Martha Washington in Philadelphia in 1795. She would have used it to hold bulkier items as she sewed, which supports the family legend that the basket often held George Washington’s socks while Martha darned…