Washington Crossing the Delaware
Washington Crossing the Delaware, 1853
After Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze (German born American, 1816-1868)
Edward Everard Arnold (German born American, ca. 1816-1866)
Oil on canvas
Anonymous gift in memory of Charles Walter Hay ’38, 2013.38.1
Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze created two original monumental paintings of Washington Crossing the Delaware in 1849 and 1851, almost 75 years after the actual Christmas 1776 crossing. Leutze was a strong supporter of the revolutionary spirit that spread through Europe in 1848. Historically inaccurate in its details, Leutze painted an image meant to inspire European reformers with the American Revolution.
The first painting was damaged in a studio fire in 1850, restored and acquired by the Bremen Kunsthalle, and then destroyed in a bombing raid in 1942.. The second painting was purchased in New York by shipping magnate and art collector Marshall O. Roberts, who allowed it to continue on its American journey to Washington, D.C., where it was on public view at a time when the United States was already bitterly divided over the issue of slavery.
Almost immediately, the painting became a symbol of America’s fight for independence and human rights. Washington stands defiantly in the bow of a rowboat, which cuts through rough water. Twelve men – Washington, two officers, and nine militiamen, including one Native American and one Black soldier – fill the boat, suggesting to the 19th century audience an idealistic all-inclusive nature of the Revolution.
Leutze’s assistant Eastman Johnson painted or assisted the artist in painting a smaller third version replica of the work for Goupil & Co. for engraving by Paul Giradet in Paris. Copyrighted 1853, the large print was widely distributed throughout the United States, and the image became one of the most recognizable in American history painting.
The Giradet print probably inspired this 1857 painting of Washington Crossing the Delaware by Edward Everard Arnold of Louisiana, a German-born artist best known as a painter of ship portraits. it is on view in the Benefactor Room in Washington Hall.