Emanuel Leutze

Emanuel Leutze (born May 24, 1816, Schwäbisch-Gmünd, Württemberg [Germany]—died July 18, 1868, Washington, D.C., U.S.) was a German-born American history painter whose oil on canvas Washington Crossing the Delaware (1851) numbers among the most popular and widely reproduced images of an American historical event.

Leutze was brought to the United States as a child, but in 1841 he returned to Germany to study at the Academy in Düsseldorf. He remained in Germany for almost 20 years and was primarily occupied with painting a series of canvases based on U.S. history. Nostalgic and anecdotal in content, they are painstakingly executed in the highly finished style of the Düsseldorf school, characterized by firm drawing, careful rendering of detail, and filled-in color.

Arguably Leutze’s best-known work, Washington Crossing the Delaware became a symbol of American patriotism although it was originally meant to energize Germans who had been defeated in the Revolution of 1848. The painting features several inaccuracies: the flag is anachronistic, the boats are too small, the wrong time of day is depicted (the crossing would have taken place at night, not dawn), and it is disputed whether Washington could have crossed the Delaware River standing in the manner presented. Leutze, however, was not aiming for strict historical fidelity. He took liberties to illustrate the young nation’s resilience in the face of overwhelming odds. Washington’s pose may be unrealistic, but it appears heroic; the dawn may be inaccurate, but it symbolizes the beginning of a new republic.

Leutze returned to the United States in 1859 and in 1860 was commissioned by the U.S. Congress to decorate a stairway in the Capitol at Washington, D.C., for which he painted a large composition, Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way (often called “Westward Ho”), illustrating the settlement of the West.