John Ramage

John Ramage was an Irish American artist, goldsmith, patroller, and second lieutenant. He was best known for painting portrait miniatures, and the first artist to paint a portrait of George Washington after he assumed office as the first President of the United States.

After serving as second lieutenant, he decided to work on miniatures in the artistic, but small community of New York. He was widely established as the best artist in the city. After painting numerous miniature portraits of New York citizens, Martha Washington, wife of George Washington, decided to select Ramage to be the first artist to paint the 1st President of the United States in office.

The sitting took place 3 October 1789, possibly at Washington's official residency at the Samuel Osgood House in New York City. Both Ramage and Washington were sharply dressed at the time of the sitting. Ramage developed two distinct miniatures of Washington.

Ramage used ivory and gold to create his elliptical shaped miniatures. For ivory, he used delicately shaded cross-hatching overlapped with fine and smooth linear strokes to model his subject's faces. With gold, he used festoons, stippled patterns, and chased scallops.

For George Washington, Ramage used a lock of Washington's hair with a meticulously cut "GW" cypher.

Text courtesy of Wikipedia, 2024