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Arcadia and been sorely disappointed. The count, a bright but tactless eccentric, dressed in the red-heeled shoes of French nobility and wore earrings. Both the count and the marquise were frowned upon by most New Yorkers, who had small tolerance for European decadence. “Appearances . . . have created and diffused an opinion that an improper connection subsists between [Moustier] and the marchioness,” Jay informed Jefferson. “You can easily conceive the influence of such an opinion on the minds and feelings of such a people as ours.”29 One local resident ridiculed the pair thus: the count was “distant, haughty, penurious, and entirely governed by the caprices of a little singular, whimsical, hysterical old woman, whose delight is in playing with a negro child and caressing a monkey.”30 Perhaps reluctant to offend the French minister, Washington flouted convention and allowed himself to be painted by the marquise, who completed a cameo miniature of Washington in neoclassical style, his head bound by a laurel wreath. In this profile, Washington has the massive head and thick neck of a Roman emperor, a clear brow, a straight nose, and a steady, godlike gaze as he stares straight ahead.

Another portrait done around this time was a direct outgrowth of Washington’s northern trip. After giving him a tour of Philosophical Hall, with its display of scientific instruments, Harvard College president Joseph Willard asked Washington if the university could have a portrait of him, and he agreed to sit for Edward Savage. In late December and early January, Washington generously granted three sessions to Savage, who portrayed him in uniform with the badge of the Society of the Cincinnati pinned to his left lapel. That Washington twice wore the badge for portraits early in his presidency shows his desire to reassert his solidarity with the group despite his rocky relationship with it. Savage’s finished portrait shows a calm, powerful, but stolid Washington with a spreading paunch. There is no fire in the eyes or expression in the face—so unlike his smiling, expressive wartime portraits—again hinting at the extreme physical changes he underwent in his later years.

During this period Washington dedicated the most time to portraits by his former aide John Trumbull, perhaps because the artist situated him in historical settings. Washington wrote admiringly of Trumbull’s “masterly execution” and “capacious mind” and showed toward him none of the petulance or impatience he did toward Gilbert Stuart.31 In 1790 alone Washington granted Trumbull a dozen sessions and even went riding with him, so the painter could study him on horseback. While training with Benjamin West in London in the early 1780s, Trumbull had been imprisoned as a secret American agent, which could only have endeared him to Washington. Trumbull now did a towering portrait of Washington for New York’s City Hall, with British ships evacuating New York in 1783 in the background, as well as portraits celebrating the Battles of Trenton and Princeton. The Trenton picture showed Washington in all his earlier magnificence, standing trim, and erect, one gloved hand clasping his sword, his chin lifted in an elegant pose. For the Princeton portrait, Trumbull presented Washington on the eve of battle. “I told the President my object,” he later wrote; “he entered into it warmly, and, as the work advanced, we talked of the scene, its dangers, its almost desperation. He looked the scene again and I happily transferred to the canvas the lofty expression of his animated countenance, the high resolve to conquer or to perish.”32

Despite his presidential cares, Washington remained a devoted family man and doted on nobody more than Nelly. She was such a bright, vivacious girl that Martha described the ten-year-old in 1789 as “a wild little creature” with boundless curiosity. 33 She had a sharp eye for people’s foibles and later on loved to poke fun at the many young beaux who courted her. As she got older, she liked to sprinkle her letters playfully with French and Italian expressions.

Even as