George Washington and William Lee (George Washington)

John Trumbull

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In this famous painting by John Trumbull, Washington is depicted standing on a bluff above the Hudson River with a Black figure assumed to be William Lee—his enslaved valet, groom, and military aide. Trumbull had served on Washington’s staff as an aide-de-camp early in the Revolutionary War. He painted this work from memory years later, while studying in London. It was the first authoritative portrayal of Washington available in Europe, and was soon widely copied. Trumbull would have known Lee from their wartime service, yet chose to depict him unnaturalistically in a turban, based on a European "orientalist" convention associated with Black figures. An accurate visual portrait of Lee—who Washington freed and granted an annuity in his will—is unknown.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art