George Washington as a Colonel in the Virginia Regiment

George Washington poses outdoors in his red and blue Virginia Regiment uniform in this 1772 portrait by Charles Willson Peale. He wears a silver gorget around his neck and a military sash, possibly General Edward Braddock’s military sash that had been given to Washington after the Battle of Monongahela during the Seven Years' War. Martha Washington commissioned the portrait to hang at Mount Vernon alongside her 1757 portrait by John Wollaston. It is the earliest known portrait of George Washington. The portrait is currently held by the Reeves Museum at Washington and Lee University.