General Washington

Charles Willson Peale|George Washington

1820 · Etching and engraving · Drawings and Prints

This print was made to illustrate Lavater's "Physionomie", Paris, 1820, vol. 6. The bust-lenth image of the general derives from a painting by Charles Willson Peale, its oval frame supportd by a panel that shows the British General Lord Cornwallis surrendering to George Washington at Yorktown on October 21, 1781. The latter reproduces a 1782 print by the French artist Le Barbier titled "Reddition de l'armée du Lord Cornwallis" (Lord Cornwallis' Army) and is part of a series, "Recueil d'estampes représentant les différents évènements de la guerre qui a procuré l'independance aux Etats-Unis de l'Amérique" (Collection of prints representing events that secured the independence of the United States of America), published in Paris by Nicolas Ponce. France's crucial military support to America during the Revolutionary War is underscored here. See 83.2.70 for an earlier, more fully developed, version of this print.

Artist

Charles Willson Peale|George Washington

Date

1820

Medium

Etching and engraving

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Gift of William H. Huntington, 1883