Existing comment:
The man on the right in the Savage painting might be one of the enslaved people George Washington inherited or acquired through marriage. The figure has traditionally been identified as William Lee, who served by Washington's side during the Revolutionary War and was the only one of his slaves whom Washington freed in his will. Based on his apparent age, though, it may be Christopher Sheels, a relative of Lee.
Another possibility is that this was not a depiction of a particular person, but rather an artistic tradition that Savage would have learned in Europe -- the inclusion of a figure in service to a gentleman sitter.
A final interpretation suggests that including the figure was Savage's statement about slavery's looming threat to the dream of a republican empire. |