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Washington Crossing the Delaware

Emanuel Leutze German American
1851
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 760
This epic painting honors a critical turning point in the American colonists’ war against Great Britain. It was a great success in Leutze’s native Germany—given the country’s own revolutionary fervor of the period—as well as in the United States, where it quickly became an iconic image, frequently recast by later artists. Evoking patriotic feelings in some viewers, conflict and struggle in others, this unavoidable highlight of the American Wing continues to spark debates about political ideas. It is exhibited here in a reproduction of its original trophy-style frame, based on a photograph by Mathew B. Brady.

“Leutze wants to paint our better angels. He shows this democratic vision towards freedom—that it’s not just Washington alone.”
Scott Manning Stevens (Akwesasne Mohawk), cultural historian

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Washington Crossing the Delaware
  • Artist: Emanuel Leutze (American, Schwäbisch Gmünd 1816–1868 Washington, D.C.)
  • Date: 1851
  • Culture: American
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: 149 x 255 in. (378.5 x 647.7 cm)
  • Credit Line: Gift of John Stewart Kennedy, 1897
  • Object Number: 97.34
  • Curatorial Department: The American Wing

Audio

Cover Image for 4340. Washington Crossing the Delaware

4340. Washington Crossing the Delaware

Gallery 760

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Most of the men in this dramatic scene engage in a turbulent contest, attempting to keep their boats moving forward against ice and wind. The disarray of soldiers serves as a foil for the tall and stalwart General Washington, who gazes steadily toward the far shore. His concentration and his will seem to provide the very motivating force for the unlikely enterprise.

On Christmas night of 1776, Washington crossed the Delaware River about nine miles above Trenton, New Jersey. There he surprised the Hessian mercenaries, hungover after a night of Christmas revelries. The battle gave Washington his most celebrated victory.

The painting contains a number of historical inaccuracies: the boats are crossing the river in the wrong direction; the ice flows are impossibly large; and there were no horses or artillery in the boats, which are in any case too light for their loads. But the popular success of this painting, which first appeared in America in October of 1851, has little to do with any pretense to historical accuracy. It is due to its monumental registration of a great moment in American historical mythology. Fifty years after Washington’s presidency and before the Civil War, there was no hero equal to Washington in stature. He was a major cult figure, and this is an iconic, mythological painting.

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