W.L. Ormsby,
Portrait of George Washington (After Gilbert Stuart), c.1800, engraving, 20 1/8 x 13 1/16 inches. Brigham Young University Museum of Art, 1969. On this day in 1814, First Lady Dolley Madison, wife of President James Madison, ordered that the Stuart portrait of George Washington be saved and rescued from the White House as the British approached to burn it down. This was in the midst of the War of 1812, as the British marched into Washington D.C. and burned much of it to the ground. This portrait is a copy of that same Stuart piece by W.L. Ormsby.