High-tech scan will copy 216-year-old George

RICHMOND, Va. - We're ready for your closeup, Mr. Washington.

A 216-year-old sculpture - the most accurate and detailed rendering of George Washington in existence - will undergo a laser scan this year to produce a precise, three-dimensional depiction of the first president.

The caretakers at Washington's Mount Vernon estate plan to use the digital map to build lifelike models of Washington that will be part of a new $85-million museum and visitor center.

A legislative committee on Tuesday approved a plan to have experts from Arizona State University scan the statue in Virginia's Capitol rotunda.

Mount Vernon wants to build models of Washington at age 19, as a young surveyor and frontiersman; age 45, when he commanded the Continental Army; and age 57, when he became president.

The marble sculpture was done by French artist Jean-Antoine Houdon, who made a plaster cast of Washington's head and took exacting measurements of his body. It is the only full-length sculpture for which Washington ever posed.

Houdon was commissioned for the work by Thomas Jefferson, then a diplomat in Paris.

Visit George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate & Gardens at www.mountvernon.org/

World and national headlines

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times 490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 Contact the Times | Privacy Policy Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright