By Paul Owens
Associated Press Writer
Friday, Oct. 26, 2001; 6:29 p.m. EDT

CHESTERTOWN, Md. –– For more than half a century, a painting of George Washington has been one of the most famous and treasured possessions of the Eastern Shore college that bears the first president's name.

The painting was said to be an 1803 work by Rembrandt Peale, an American artist renowned for his portraits of Washington and other historical figures.

"Of all the relics we have of George Washington, and of the early history of the college, nothing we have compares with this splendid gift," then-Washington College president Gilbert Mead said in accepting the donated painting in 1944.

More than a half century later, that splendid gift has turned out to be a fake.

The 3-foot-by-4-foot painting shows a life-size George Washington from the waist up, wearing the outfit of the secret fraternal society known as Freemasons. It has gone by two names: "George Washington as Master Mason" and "Brother General George Washington."

A 1932 article in the now defunct Baltimore American newspaper said the painting had been found in the attic of a local family. Its authenticity was established by a letter allegedly written by the artist. Twelve years later, James M. Swartz and James W. Stevens, two Baltimore businessmen, donated the painting to Washington College. Swartz's father, Mano Swartz, a local furrier, was said to have purchased the portrait from a Virginia family.

Again, the letter was cited as proof that Peale was the artist.

In the ensuing decades, the painting was displayed in the college president's office and board room, and the library. But the college never had the work appraised and so never ascertained its value, according to Joseph Holt, the school's vice president for administration. (Authentic Peales can sell in the millions.)

Questions lingered about the authenticity of the George Washington portrait. The artist's signature on the back of the canvas was missing – supposedly lost during a restoration – and only a copy of the letter from Peale, not the original, could be located.

Holt decided to try to settle those questions after the painting was included in an anniversary exhibition of Washington art and memorabilia to mark the 200th anniversary of the first president's death in 1999.

"The value wasn't the overriding issue," he said. "Trying to get to the truth was."

Last year, Washington College hired Carol Soltis, a Peale expert, to evaluate the painting.

"In my opinion, the portrait of 'George Washington as Master Mason' ... is not a work by Rembrandt Peale," Soltis concluded in her report to Washington College.

Soltis' report listed several problems in the painting's documentation, including the letter supposedly sent by the artist. She studied the copy and found it much more specific than any other letters Peale had written about his work.

The handwriting on the letter didn't appear to be Peale's; to Soltis, the signature looked like one from a series of forged Peale drawings donated to a Delaware museum.

Soltis also searched for any mention of the Washington portrait among historical references to other paintings Peale did in 1803. She found none.

But the notion that Washington College's painting was authentic was perhaps most seriously undermined by the work itself.

"What can be observed on the canvas is a portrait that is primitive in execution," Soltis wrote in her report.

Soltis said the painting struck her as one from an "untutored hand" – not from Peale, "an extremely accomplished artist."

"I was looking for the glimmer of Rembrandt Peale, which I didn't ever really actually find," she said.

While forgeries of the works of great artists are common, Soltis is not certain that the one at Washington College was originally painted to be passed off as a Peale. But her report said she believes "a purposeful misattribution" of the painting to the American master began in 1932, the date of its supposed rediscovery in the Baltimore attic.

The businessmen who later came to own the painting and donated it in 1944 might not have been aware of any questions surrounding its authenticity, she said.

The painting, the largest at Washington College, now hangs in an 18th-century building on campus known as the Custom House. The building includes the college's C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience.

The center's program manager, Kees de Mooy, is happy to have the painting on display there.

"From a historical standpoint, it's a great lesson in exposing the truth, no matter what it is," de Mooy said.