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The April Title
Announcing the next Thornwillow Dispatch

Picture Democracy

by Wolf Burchard

Available for pre-order via subscription to the Thornwillow Dispatch until March 31st, 2026 at 7pm EST.

Dear Friends of Thornwillow,

As we continue our yearlong celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we are pleased to present the next volume in the ongoing Thornwillow Dispatch series: Picture Democracy, a brilliant new meditation on the visual language of power by Metropolitan Museum of Art curator Wolf Burchard.

In this elegant and thought-provoking work, Burchard begins with a striking question: What did power look like before 1776? His answer unfolds through three iconic portraits of George III, Louis XVI, and George Washington and reveals just how radical the American experiment truly was. If kings had long been portrayed through the established language of majesty, inherited authority, and divine right, how was one to portray the leader of a republic?

At the center of the book is Gilbert Stuart’s great Lansdowne portrait of Washington, a painting that helped invent a new visual language for democratic leadership.

The subject carries special resonance for us here in Newburgh, where Washington famously rejected the suggestion that he should become a king — a decisive act that defined the character of the new republic.

Richly illuminating, Picture Democracy invites us to see the Revolution anew, not only as a political transformation, but as a transformation in the very image of power.

Each copy is printed letterpress at Thornwillow on heavy archival stock and beautifully bound. As always, the Dispatch is available in Classic, Patrons’, and Centaur editions, each distinguished by its own binding, paper, and limitation.

Pre-publication subscriptions are now open, beginning the brief period during which this Dispatch may be reserved before it is printed and bound. Following publication, copies will be available à la carte at a higher price until the edition is sold out.

With highest regards from the press,

Luke Ives Pontifell Printer & Publisher

This title is available for subscription now until March 31st, 2026 at 7pm EST in three letterpress-printed limited editions:

• Classic Edition: Copies bound in letterpress paper wrappers

• Patrons’ Edition: Volumes featuring deluxe paste paper wrappers*

• Centaur Patrons’ Edition: Hardbound in cloth and decorative paper boards*

Patrons’ and Centaur Patrons’ Editions will also be individually numbered and signed by the author and publisher.

*Available only to Centaur Patron subscribers to the Thornwillow Dispatch

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Picture Democracy

What did power look like before 1776? This is the question Wolf Burchard asks in Picture Democracy.

When the celebrated portraitist Gilbert Stuart returned to his native land after spending nearly 20 years in London in the circles of other expatriate American painters such as John Singleton Copley and Benjamin West, it was to produce portraits of George Washington – many portraits indeed, an estimated 100 in total. His most ambitious and most nerve-racking commission was the so-called Landsdowne portrait, a full-length state portrait of the first President of the United States.

But how do you portray a president? Washington was the first of his kind, so there was no established formula comparable to that employed in the depictions of other heads of state, kings, queens, emperors, and popes. Picture Democracy is about such people of power, and how some of the supreme artistic exponents of their time tried to convey that power through portraiture. It tells the story of three likenesses of three men – George III, Louis XVI, and George Washington – who never met in person, but who for decades had almost daily interactions with one another, or were, at the very least, on each other’s minds.

This year marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, in the lead up of which numerous new publications will be revisiting the unfolding of the Revolutionary War, the achievements and failures of its protagonists, their ideals and shortcomings, and what lessons we might draw from that most transformative chapter in the history of the United States.

George Washington, by Gilbert Stuart 1796

To illustrate just how transformative it was, Picture Democracy takes a close look at Stuart’s Lansdowne Portrait in relation to the coronation portraits of George III by Alan Ramsay and Louis XVI by Joseph-Siffred Duplessis, painted at the dawn of the American Revolution. While Ramsay and Duplessis are pulling all stops to make their beholder believe in the divine right of kings, Stuart is addressing a new kind of audience, one that has to educate itself to participate in the political discourse of a newly found Republic.

Joseph-Siffred Duplessis – Louis XVI  (left), Alan Ramsay – George III (right)