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Famous life portrait unveiled Date published: 6/28/2009
The James Madison Museum honored the father of the Constitution last week by showing one of the only five portraits of the fourth president painted from life. Madison descendants Frederick Madison Smith, president of the National Society of the Madison Family Descendents, and Helen Marie Taylor, president and founding donor of the James Madison Museum, unveiled the famous portrait by William Dunlap last Sunday. The painting, which has not been publicly displayed, was owned by Marion duPont Scott, who lived at Montpelier during the 20th century. Her nephew, John duPont, inherited the original 19th-century portrait, which was one of only five painted from life. He sold it and it was subsequently purchased, more than 20 years ago, by Taylor. The James Madison Museum, 129 Caroline St. in Orange, is open daily, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. and Sunday, 1 p.m.-4 p.m. Orange County schoolchildren get in free, and receive copies of the Constitution. Two new exhibits, which were mounted last year, are still available for viewing: The first commemorates the 250th birthday of President James Monroe--"The Found-ing Friendships of James Madison and James Monroe: Defenders of Democracy in the Young American Republic." The second, marking President Zachary Taylor's 224th birthday, is "Presidential Cousins--James Madison and Zachary Taylor." Both were great-grandsons of Col. James Taylor II and Martha Thompson. Their Queen Anne frontier cottage, "Bloomsbury," said to be the oldest house in what became Orange County, is open to the public by appointment.
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