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6. Chair
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![The Portrait](../images/title_theportrait.gif)
6. CHAIR
Symbolic:
![Revolutionary Battle Flag,circa 1776](images/06s_1.jpg) |
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Revolutionary Battle Flag,circa 1776
Library of Congress
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The oval medallion on the back of the armchair is draped with laurel, a symbol of victory. The medallions stars and stripes imitate those on the Great Seal, in which an eagle bears a shield with a blue horizontal field with 13 stars above 13 red-and-white vertical stripes. William Barton, one of the designers of the Seal, said the stars and the stripes represented the 13 original states, individually and as a confederation.
![George Washington engraving, 1791](images/06s_2.jpg) |
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George Washington engraving, 1791
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
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The chair is also decorated with five pointed stars and acanthus leaves, reflective of classical Greek and Roman ornamentation.
Biographic:
![Engraving of George Washington and Family by Edward Savage and David Edwin, 1798](images/06b_1.jpg) |
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Engraving of George Washington and Family by Edward Savage and David Edwin, 1798
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
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When Washington took up residence in New York, the nations capital, in 1789, he purchased from the Count de Moustier a Louis XVI armchair that had a rosette similar to those on the chair rail and the table in the painting.
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