SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Paintings of George Washington gaze down sternly at visitors to the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. One image in particular seems iconic, with Washington's head turned slightly to the side. Brian Short (ph) of Houston thought he recognized this George Washington.
BRIAN SHORT: It looks like the image on the dollar bill.
SIMON: And he's right, painted by Gilbert Stuart in 1796. Nearly a century later, it inspired the engraving on the dollar bill. Mindy Farmer, a historian at the gallery, says Stuart painted over a hundred George Washington portraits. Many of them nearly exact copies of the one on display here.
MINDY FARMER: Getting to that specific number is a little debatable 'cause there are some that - you know, that we know about certainly and some that are on the cusp. And there are new discoveries found really all the time.
SIMON: Stuart was one of the most popular portrait artists in the young nation but less accomplished in personal finance.
FARMER: He moves around a bit. He trains in England. He trains in Scotland. He lives in the United States, and a lot of the times his moves are forced less by choice and more by escaping debtors.
SIMON: Churning out evermore George Washington portraits helped pay the bills. One of those paintings eventually wound up at Clarkson University, a small college in upstate New York. And one afternoon in 1968, it was the subject of a brazen midday heist.
STEVE PAZIAN: Literally, it was, like, noon, 1 o'clock. We're not talking about something that was done early morning or late at night. It was there in front of everybody. You know, it was just on the wall, not with any, you know, special security whatsoever.
SIMON: It was fraternity pledge week, and Steve Pazian and two friends were up to some mischief. First, they couldn't decide between filching a fancy ashtray or what they thought was a cheap knock-off painting.
PAZIAN: We chose poorly and chose the painting and found out very shortly after that it was original (laughter).
SIMON: But no joke. The Washington they'd purloined had been commissioned and owned by another U.S. president, James Madison. Once the fraternity brothers realized the value of the painting, they schemed to return it without giving themselves away.
PAZIAN: The decision was made to take it to a church in this - in Buffalo and alert the minister of the church and the school that here it is. This was a prank, and come get it.
SIMON: Authorities were able to track down Pazian and his accomplices. They were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct, though the charge was later expunged.
MARTHA WILLOUGHBY: I think that they didn't realize what they were getting themselves into.
SIMON: Martha Willoughby is a consultant with Christie's. Gilbert Stuart's portrait of Washington is headed to the New York auction house next year, and she says, with such a rich history, it could bring in more than a million dollars.
WILLOUGHBY: It's getting a lot of excitement, and the - really it's what the Madison provenance adds to it is a - is completely unknown. We've got a good amount of information about what a Gilbert Stuart portrait of Washington will bring, but Madison's ownership makes it very unpredictable.
SIMON: And this time, frat boys, keep your hands off the art.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN PHILIP SOUSA'S "THE WASHINGTON POST MARCH") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
