On April 30, 1789, George Washington stood on the second-floor balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York and took the oath of office as the first President of the United States. The country was just over five years out of the war with Britain, the Constitution had been in force for less than two months, and almost everything about how a president was supposed to act was about to be invented by the man taking the oath. Robert R. Livingston, Chancellor of New York, administered it on a Masonic Bible borrowed from a nearby lodge — there was no federal Bible to hand. Washington wore a plain brown suit cut from American-made broadcloth from Hartford, Connecticut, deliberately rejecting British cloth to make a quiet point about the new country he was about to lead. Livingston announced him to the crowd afterward: "Long live George Washington, President of the United States!" The W. Britain set captures the moment of the oath: three figures on a scenic base — Washington on the right in his brown American-made suit and dress sword, the Bible-bearer at center holding the Masonic Bible on a crimson cushion, and Livingston on the left with hand raised to administer the oath. It is one of the few multi-figure W. Britain pieces depicting a specific datable moment rather than a generic battlefield scene, which makes it a natural centerpiece of any Washington display or U.S. Presidents collection. This set pairs with the other Washington figures Breagans carries — General Washington Mounted, the Virginia Regiment colonel, and the standing 1780-83 figure — to span the full Washington-through-his-career arrangement. 1/30 scale (60mm), matte-painted, three-figure set on integrated scenic base, boxed. Catalog number 1789. As with the rest of the W. Britain modern range, the painting is photographic-quality detail intended to read well in dioramas and display cases.
