Emanuel Leutze

Its wide circulation in America was due to representatives of the New York gallery of Goupil, Vibert and Company, established in 1848 to disseminate in America, work by European artists, and to familiarize Europeans with American culture. Previous to Leutze’s painting, the company had circulated other mezzotints of Washington based on Gilbert Stuart’s Athenaeum-type portraits, but Washington Crossing the Delaware was “unrivaled in Goupil’s repertoire of American historical subjects.” (McIntosh 70).

However, delivery of the Leutze image to the public had a rocky start because in 1850, shortly after the painting was completed, it was destroyed by a fire. However, insurance money was sufficient to pay Leutze to paint another like it, which Goupil purchased for the equivalent of $6000.00, and which in 1853, engraver Paul Girardet used to make a large-scale line engraving, described in the Bulletin of the American Art Union, December 1850, as “a plate of the largest size ever used.” (McIntosh 71).

Six months later, Leutze’s re-painted and second ‘original’ canvas arrived in New York City, where it was exhibited at the Stuyvesant Institute. The painting was described in the October 18, 1851 issue of Literary World as “the best painting yet executed of an American subject.” Using this original painting as the promotional work, Goupil took orders for copies. For early subscribers before September 1, 1853, a black and white impression was $12.00. Then the price would rise to $15.00, and hand-colored impressions would be $20.00. Three years later Goupil’s print was reissued in a smaller version, and the company also offered photographs and cabinet cards. By the 1890s, Goupil’s successors were offering new versions of the image including miniature photogravure. Meanwhile Marshall O. Robert, a New York transportation magnate, purchased the painting, which ultimately was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, after it had circulated for many exhibition fundraisers including the Metropolitan Sanity Fair to raise money for Civil War veterans.

Because of the popularity of Washington Crossing the Delaware, Emanuel Leutze received much attention, although his name was generally forgotten by the American public in the sweep of Modernism* in the early 20th Century.

The last nine years of his life he traveled between New York and Washington D.C., and settled his wife and children from Germany in Washington D.C. In 1861 he had submitted sketches for a painting with a westward settlement theme for the west wall by the west staircase of the House of Representatives. Because of the popularity of Leutze’s George Washington painting and its association with patriotism, many persons had advocated for Leutze to do work for the United States Capitol. The advocacy had begun in 1851 when a Senator Cooper, friend of supporters of Leutze, gave a speech in the Senate suggestion that Leutze be given the commission that he received ten years later.