Mount Vernon in the Olden Time. Washington at 30 Years of Age

This mid-nineteenth-century engraving depicts a post-hunting scene in an outbuilding at Mount Vernon, the Fairfax County plantation then owned by thirty-year-old George Washington. The future president, dressed in buckskin with a powder horn strung across his chest, sits after a successful hunt. Washington's dogs are at his feet, as well as part of the bounty of the day—several birds, a duck, and a hare. At the back of the room, an enslaved man wearing a head scarf weighs a large dead stag. At bottom right, an enslaved boy sits next to a wicker carrying basket. At right, George Washington's wife, Martha Custis Washington, wears a fine gown and pearls in her hair as she brings in two goblets and a refreshing drink for Washington and his hunting companion. Martha is accompanied by a well-dressed girl and boy—her two surviving children from her previous marriage to Daniel Parke Custis. The columns of the Mount Vernon mansion can be seen through the open doorway.