George Washington - Light Brown - Charles Wilson Peale - 1772

The stamp is light brown in color with a narrow white border within which in the upper part is a flat tinted panel inclosing a background of darker shade. Extending to the top of the stamp is a semicircular panel with white edges and dark ground, resting at either end on fluted side columns which rise slightly above midway of the stamp. Within this panel appear the words "United States postage" in white-faced Roman. At the base of the column in each lower corner is a small rectangular panel with beveled upper corners containing the figures "1½" in white-faced Roman on a solid ground. The small panels are connected by a horizontal panel with dark ground, containing the word "Cents" in white Roman. In the space under the arch in the central part of the stamp is a likeness of Washington modeled from a painting known as the Virginia Colonel made at Mount Vernon in 1772 by Charles Wilson Peale, the original of which is now in Washington and Lee University. At the base of the portrait is a white-ribbon panel containing the word "Washington" in the center and the dates "1732" at the left and "1932" at the right which extend slightly upward and overlap the lower ends of the side columns.

In cooperation with the national celebration of the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of George Washington, the Department authorized a special series of 12 postage stamps in denominations of ½ cent to 10 cents, inclusive, to be kept on sale in post offices throughout the anniversary period in lieu of the regular series of stamps.

The stamps are of regulation size, 0.75 by 0.87 inch in dimension, arranged vertically, and have as the central designs portraits of Washington modeled from the works of noted artists