The son of Marie Besse, who did not offcially recognise him until 1868, forty-one years after his birth, this artist took the pseudonym of Georges Washington. He studied in Paris with Francois-Édouard Picot, painter of historic and military subjects. Washington exhibited his pictures at the Salon des Artistes Franqais for nearly fifty years. These were almost exclusively devoted to Algeria (the Sahara, Constantine, Kabylia and El Kantara) and Morocco, with rare scenes of horse-racing in Europe, such as Le Derby de Chantilly (Horse Race at Chantilly), 1864, and Steeplechase å Vincennes (Steeplechase in Vincennes), 1865. His paintings, of rural and nomadic life, close in feeling to those of Fromentin, are generally of groups of mounted horsemen, often shaded by leafy trees. Other scenes are less peaceful: fantasias, or prisoners being led by armed escorts. Washington's reputation grew from the time he first received a mention at the Salon for Les nomades dans le Sahara en hiver (Nomads in the Sahara in Winter), now in the Lille museum, but by the end of his life, he had been almost completely forgotten.
In 1884, thirty of his paintings were auctioned at Drouot. This was the year that he inherited his future home from his father-in-law, the military painter Henri Philippoteaux. This was a modest apartment in a Montmartre housing estate known as the Château des Brouillards. Washington's paintings can be seen in the museums of Dunkirk (Cavaliers arabes) (Arab Horsemen), Limoges (Chevaux arabes a l'abreuvoir) (Arab Horses at the Watering Trough) and Sete (Fantasia arabe) (Arab Fantasia).
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