General Washington

General Washington

Charles Willson Peale

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

General WashingtonGeneral WashingtonGeneral WashingtonGeneral WashingtonGeneral Washington

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.