What is the most iconic presidential portrait in American history?

Paint on canvas, a cracked glass negative, a wall of green leaves. These are the pictures that fixed how a president is remembered.

1

Healy's 'The Peacemakers' Lincoln

George Healy's 1868 painting of Lincoln listening to his generals aboard the River Queen.

1000pts

2

Kempton's Harry Truman

Greta Kempton's official portrait of a president who wanted to look like a bank manager.

1000pts

3

Lincoln's Cracked-Plate Portrait

Alexander Gardner's 1865 photograph, the glass negative split across Lincoln's forehead.

764pts

4

Sargent's Theodore Roosevelt

John Singer Sargent's 1903 White House portrait, painted with Roosevelt gripping a staircase newel.

764pts

5

The Lansdowne Washington

Gilbert Stuart's full-length 1796 Washington, the template for how a president should stand.

647pts

6

The Athenaeum Washington

Stuart's unfinished 1796 head study — the face on every one-dollar bill since.

647pts

7

Brady's Cooper Union Lincoln

Mathew Brady's 1860 studio photograph, credited by Lincoln himself with helping elect him.

647pts

8

Rembrandt Peale's Jefferson

The 1800 portrait that fixed Jefferson's image for two centuries of textbooks.

647pts

9

Shikler's John F. Kennedy

Aaron Shikler's posthumous portrait of a president with his arms folded and his head down.

647pts

10

The Great Seal Washington

The profile Washington used on coins and seals, taken from Jean-Antoine Houdon's life mask.

647pts

11

FDR's Unfinished Portrait

Elizabeth Shoumatoff's watercolour, abandoned mid-sitting when Roosevelt collapsed in April 1945.

503pts

12

Peale's Washington at Princeton

Charles Willson Peale's 1779 general, painted from life while the war was still being lost.

503pts

13

Grant at City Point

Mathew Brady's 1864 photograph of the general leaning against a tree, hat pushed back.

503pts

14

Earl's Andrew Jackson

Ralph E. W. Earl's portraits of Old Hickory, painted by an artist who lived in the White House.

503pts

15

Wiley's Barack Obama

Kehinde Wiley's 2018 National Portrait Gallery painting, the sitter set in a wall of foliage.

323pts

16

Lincoln and Tad, 1865

Gardner's February 1865 photograph of the president reading with his youngest son.

323pts