Two Versions of "General Washington's Resignation": Politics, Commerce, and Visual Culture in 1790s Philadelphia

In a span of less than two years, two versions of John James Barralet's General Washington's Resignation appeared in Philadelphia: a transparency, now lost, that anchored the meaning of a celebratory dinner (1797); and an engraving employed as the frontispiece to a partisan, Federalist magazine (1799). Drawing on the era's burgeoning periodical culture, this essay follows the image through a web of politics and commerce, analyzes the alterations that accompanied its change of medium and venue, and examines some of the contests that swirled around the figure of Washington as his image became synonymous with the wellbeing of the nation.