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An Iconic Revolutionary War Image
Finely engraved example of the Thomas Kelly / William Robertson edition of this important early scene, Washington Crossing the Delaware, based upon an oil-on-canvas painting by the German American artist Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze, painted in 1850.
Leutze's painting commemorates General George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River on the night of December 25-26, 1776, during the American Revolutionary War. That action was the first move in a surprise attack against the Hessian forces at Trenton, New Jersey, in the Battle of Trenton.
The engraving depicts perhaps the single most iconographic image of American history. The image was so ubiquitous that Mark Twain commented sardonically upon its presence, over countless mantlepieces in Life on the Mississippi.
The original painting was part of the collection at the Kunsthalle in Bremen, Germany and was destroyed in a British air raid in 1942, during World War II. A second full size version of the painting was made by Leutze in 1850. The painting was originally bought by Marshall O. Roberts for $10,000. After changing ownership several times, it was finally donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art by John Stewart Kennedy in 1897.
![A Geographical Chart: or, A Scheme, Comprehending The Most Important Particulars Relative To The Geography of North and South-America. : Designed to be an Auxiliary to the Student. Carefully Compiled from the Best authorities, by Amos Bingham [Copy-Right Secured]](https://storage.googleapis.com/raremaps/img/small/41406.jpg)
