The Most Iconic American Revolution Image
Emanuel Gottleib Leutze, a German-American artist, painted in 1851 what came to be the American Revolution’s most iconic image: Washington Crossing the Delaware. Leutze actually painted three copies, one of which was housed in Germany and was destroyed in World War II. The other two survive, one in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the other in the Minnesota Marine Art Museum. The oil on canvas paintings, which measure twenty one feet and three inches by fourteen feet and five inches, captured imaginations ever since they were unveiled.
The event depicted, a surprise attack in late 1776 against an enemy garrison at Trenton, New Jersey, was dramatic. It came at the heels of a series of disastrous American defeats, and its success prevented a complete collapse of the Patriot war effort. Leutze depicts George Washington at a boat’s prow, staring determinedly straight ahead as it is rowed towards the enemy bank, while flanked by other Patriot-laden boats. It is a great work of art, but is historically inaccurate: as seen below, Washington’s actual crossing of the Delaware looked nothing like Leutze’s depiction.