FREE: MINT 1940 1¢ Gilbert Charles Stuart US Scott # 884 F/VF OG

The listing, MINT 1940 1¢ Gilbert Charles Stuart US Scott # 884 F/VF OG has ended.

U.S. #884
1940 1¢ Gilbert Stuart
Famous Americans Series – Artists

Issue Date: September 5, 1940
First City: Narragansett, Rhode Island
Quantity Issued: 54,389,510
Printed by: Bureau of Engraving and Printing
Printing Method: Rotary Press
Perforation: 10 ½ x 11
Color: Bright blue green

Featured on U.S. #884, Gilbert Stuart was just 19 years old when he traveled to England to study art in 1775. He had already proven himself to be a promising portrait painter, and the American Revolution threatened to disrupt his progress. Stuart became a successful artist and one of the best-known painters in Europe.

Stuart returned to America and opened a studio in Philadelphia in 1793. It was there he painted a series of portraits of President George Washington. With help from his daughters, he made 130 portraits of Washington in all, but he never finished the most famous one – called “The Athenaeum.”

The painting shows Washington from the shoulders up, with no background and only one third of the canvas painted. But it was from this original that Stuart and his daughters based future portraits of Washington. More importantly, this portrait provided the image that is used on the one dollar bill.