Surrender of General Burgoyne
Surrender of General Burgoyne | |
---|---|
Artist | John Trumbull |
Year | 1821 |
Type | Oil painting |
Dimensions | 3.7 m × 5.5 m (12 ft × 18 ft) |
Location | United States Capitol rotunda, Washington, D.C., U.S. |
Owner | United States |
The Surrender of General Burgoyne is an oil painting by the American artist John Trumbull. The painting was completed in 1821 and hangs in the United States Capitol rotunda in Washington, D.C.
The painting depicts the surrender of
Commission
Artist John Trumbull (1756–1843) spent the early part of the American Revolutionary War as a soldier, serving as an aide to both George Washington and Horatio Gates.[1] After resigning from the army in 1777, he pursued a career as an artist. In 1785 he began sketching out ideas for a series of large-scale paintings to commemorate the major events of the American Revolution, and in 1791 he traveled to Saratoga, New York, where he sketched the landscape of the surrender site.[2]
Upon his return from Britain after the end of the War of 1812, he promoted this idea to the United States Congress. On the strength of his application and the successful exhibition of The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker's Hill, June 17, 1775 and The Death of General Montgomery in the Attack on Quebec, December 31, 1775, as well as studies for other proposed paintings, the Congress in 1817 voted to commission four large paintings from him, to be hung in the United States Capitol rotunda.[2][3]
The price was set at $8,000 per painting, with the size and subject matter to be determined by
Description
This painting depicts General
Other versions
Trumbull created a smaller, substantially similar version of the painting that now belongs to the Yale University Art Gallery. The rotunda version was used as the basis for a commemorative stamp issued in 1994.[2]
People depicted
Weir provided this list, p. 69. The people depicted are listed approximately from left to right.
- Major Lithgow
- Colonel Joseph Cilley
- Brigadier General John Stark
- Captain Seymour
- Major William Hull
- Colonel Greaton
- Major Henry Dearborn
- Colonel Alexander Scammell
- Colonel Lewis
- Brigadier General William Phillips
- Lieutenant General John Burgoyne
- Lieutenant General Baron Friedrich Adolph Riedesel
- Colonel James Wilkinson
- Major General Horatio Gates
- Colonel William Prescott
- Colonel Daniel Morgan
- Brigadier General Rufus Putnam
- Lieutenant Colonel John Brooks
- Reverend Mr. Hitchcock
- Major Robert Troup
- Major Haskell
- Major Armstrong
- Major General Philip Schuyler
- Brigadier General John Glover
- Brigadier General William Whipple
- Major Matthew Clarkson
- Major Ebenezer Stevens
See also
Notes
References
- Architect of the Capitol. "Surrender of General Burgoyne". Retrieved 2010-03-08.
- Weir, John Ferguson (1901). John Trumbull: a brief sketch of his life. C. Scribner's. p. 36.
Burgoyne.
External links
- Architect of the Capitol Web page on the painting