jan 1, 1815 - Washington Crossing the Delaware | Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze

Description:

Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze (1816-1868) was a German-American history painter. The painting was made in 1851, and depicts George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River during the American revolutionary war (Apr 19, 1775 – Sep 3, 1783). The incident occurred on the night between December 25-26, 1776. It was the first move in a surprise attack against the Hessian forces, in which Washington led a column of Continental Army troops across the icy Delaware River, which constituted one of the most important acts in conquering America. The painting was born out of Leutze's support of the European Revolution in 1848 - he looked back at the American Revolution for inspiration. He hired American tourists and art students as models for the figures in the painting, and so all of the faces in the picture are American faces. It is also the reason why there are women and black people as troops. Leutze’s depiction of the attack was successful in America and Germany. He painted 2 versions due to a fire in his studio damaging the first, one in 1850 and the second in 1851, but the first was destroyed during a bombing raid in WWII in 1942. The second version is now one of the most famous artworks ever made.

The historical inaccuracies in the painting in a beautiful list:
Washington's place on the boat’s edge, he would have fallen into the water and drowned.
Everyone’s placement - probably were all standing as the boat was flat, if they were seated they would’ve been covered with frigid water from head to toe.
Washington's age - he is seen as the aged stately man we all know him as, but was only 44 at that time of the event.
The sunlight - the crossing happened at dawn in the middle of a snowstorm.
The icebergs floating in the water were actually just ice sheets.as completely dark outside.
The flag in the painting wasn’t used at the time of the crossing.
And the long, wide expanse that the boats are crossing, it was quite narrow and hard to navigate in.
Lastly, the long, wide expanse the boats are crossing is incorrect - it was actually only a few hundred meters.

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