Paul J. Staiti, Of Arms and Artists: The American Revolution through Painters' Eyes (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2016).
","citation":"Paul J. Staiti, Of Arms and Artists: The American Revolution through Painters' Eyes (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2016).
, Front cover (illus.)","date":2016,"id":6820,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/933590402"},{"boilertext":"Erik Goldstein, Stuart C. Mowbray, Brian Hendelson, and Carol Borchert Cadou, The Swords of George Washington (Woonsocket: Mowbray Publishing, 2016).","citation":"Erik Goldstein, Stuart C. Mowbray, Brian Hendelson, and Carol Borchert Cadou, The Swords of George Washington (Woonsocket: Mowbray Publishing, 2016).","date":2016,"id":6831,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/944970090"},{"boilertext":"David C. Ward, \"Celebration of self: the portraiture of Charles Willson Peale and Rembrand Peale, 1822-1827\", American art 7, no. 1 (Winter, 1993): p. 8-27.","citation":"David C. Ward, \"Celebration of self: the portraiture of Charles Willson Peale and Rembrand Peale, 1822-1827\", American art 7, no. 1 (Winter, 1993): p. 8-27., 9-27","date":1993,"id":640,"uri":"https://www.jstor.org/stable/3109132"},{"boilertext":"Karl Kusserow et al., Inner sanctum: memory and meaning in Princeton’s Faculty Room at Nassau Hall, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2010).","citation":"Karl Kusserow et al., Inner sanctum: memory and meaning in Princeton’s Faculty Room at Nassau Hall, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2010)., p. 60, fig. 12 (illus.)","date":2010,"id":849,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/645678813"},{"boilertext":"Barbara J. Mitnick, ed., New Jersey in the American Revolution, (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press with Rivergate Books, 2005).","citation":"Barbara J. Mitnick, ed., New Jersey in the American Revolution, (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press with Rivergate Books, 2005)., ","date":2005,"id":163,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/56482300"},{"boilertext":"David C. Ward, \"Creating a National Culture: Charles Willson Peale's George Washington at the Battle of Princeton in History and Memory,\" Record of the Princeton University Art Museum 70 (2011): 4–17.
","citation":"David C. Ward, \"Creating a National Culture: Charles Willson Peale's George Washington at the Battle of Princeton in History and Memory,\" Record of the Princeton University Art Museum 70 (2011): 4–17.
, p. 4, fig.1; p. 13, fig. 7","date":2011,"id":2967,"uri":"https://www.jstor.org/stable/23631214"},{"boilertext":"Elizabeth Baughan and Karl Kusserow, \"Framing history in early Princeton\", Record of the Princeton University Art Museum 70 (2011): p 18-29.
","citation":"Elizabeth Baughan and Karl Kusserow, \"Framing history in early Princeton\", Record of the Princeton University Art Museum 70 (2011): p 18-29.
, p. 21, fig. 5; p. 24, fig. 11; p. 28, fig. 22","date":2011,"id":2968,"uri":"https://www.jstor.org/stable/23631215"},{"boilertext":"Charles Allen Munn, Three types of Washington portraits, (New York: The Gilliss Press, 1908).","citation":"Charles Allen Munn, Three types of Washington portraits, (New York: The Gilliss Press, 1908)., 22-42","date":1908,"id":660,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/1000357383"},{"boilertext":"John Balderston Harker, Betsy Ross's Five-Pointed Star: Elizabeth Claypoole, Quaker flag maker -- a historical perspective, (Melbourne Beach, FL: Canmore Press, 2005).","citation":"John Balderston Harker, Betsy Ross's Five-Pointed Star: Elizabeth Claypoole, Quaker flag maker -- a historical perspective, (Melbourne Beach, FL: Canmore Press, 2005)., Exhibit 9, btwn. 92-93, illus.; Exhibit 10, btwn. 92-93, fig. a-c, illus.; Exhibit 11, btwn. 92-93, illus.","date":2005,"id":229,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/61313734"}],"nowebuse":"False","periods":[],"department":"American Art","attribute_groups":[{"id":2199325,"term":"North American Art","termtype":"Collecting Area"}],"daterange":"A.D. 1700-1800","dateend":1784,"depicted":[],"titles":[{"title":"George Washington at the Battle of Princeton","titletype":"Primary Title","displayorder":1}],"hasimage":"true","creditlinerepro":"","objectnumber":"PP222","inscribed":null,"texts":[{"texttype":"Online","textpurpose":"Handbook Entry","textentryhtml":"\r\nAn icon of American art, George Washington at the Battle of Princeton monumentalizes an event central to both the University’s and the nation’s history. On January 3, 1777, following a decisive win at Trenton, the Continental Army under General Washington consolidated its unaccustomed momentum with a second victory on and around the Princeton campus of the College of New Jersey, as the school was then known, helping turn the tide of the Revolution after a series of inauspicious defeats. Completed in 1784 on commission from the trustees of the College, and installed for more than two centuries at its center in Nassau Hall, Charles Willson Peale’s dramatic image was apparently paid for with funds bestowed by Washington himself as a testimony of his respect for the institution, regarding which he wrote, \"No college has turned out better scholars or more estimable characters than Nassau.\" \r\nIn a richly symbolic circumstance, the painting was explicitly conceived to take the place — indeed, to occupy the very frame — of a portrait of George II, \"the late king of Great-Britain, which,\" according to the minutes of the trustees, \"was torn away by a ball from the American artillery in the battle of Princeton.\" This unusual situation may have influenced Peale to produce a picture whose composition is distinctly more formal — more in keeping with the state portrait it was intended to replace — than the artist’s other great image of the leader, George Washington after the Battle of Princeton, completed several years earlier and reproduced by Peale in at least a dozen replicas, one of which is also at the University. That painting depicts Washington at ease during the aftermath of the conflict, with victory assured, and, as such, is more an artifact of propaganda than history painting, which accounts for its extensive reproduction and international dissemination as a diplomatic tool to bolster the new nation’s legitimacy. \r\nBy contrast, George Washington at the Battle of Princeton, as its title implies, evokes the battle itself (one that Peale had experienced firsthand as an officer of the Philadelphia militia) and makes specific reference to events from it, notably the death of Washington’s friend General Hugh Mercer, shown expiring in the arms of surgeon Benjamin Rush, a blood-stained bayonet lying at the general’s feet indicating the cause of death. With sword poised in readiness, Washington gestures to the battle raging behind him, where Continental troops, pistols and muskets blazing, force the British soldiers away from their Nassau Hall stronghold — or, in the pictorial logic of the painting, literally out of existence, off the picture plane, in the direction that Washington’s raised weapon appears to impel them. Meanwhile, a diminutive horseman bearing a white flag, just visibly rendered approaching from Nassau Hall, makes apparent that Mercer’s ultimate sacrifice, and by implication that of others in the patriot cause, had not been in vain, as American forces would carry the day and thereby gain invaluable confidence in their larger campaign against a formidable adversary.\r\nPerhaps on account of its greater specificity, this rendition of the battle, perfectly suited to its intended destination in Nassau Hall, was not repeated by Peale and, unlike the other version at Princeton, is unique. The work is also distinguished in being painted from life. In December 1783, Washington granted Peale the fifth of his unsurpassed seven sittings with the future president to produce this portrait, which the artist completed in time for the painting’s unveiling in Princeton the following September. ","remarks":null},{"texttype":"Online","textpurpose":"Provenance","textentryhtml":"Commissioned by the Trustees of Princeton University.","remarks":null},{"texttype":"Online","textpurpose":"Gallery Label","textentryhtml":"Peale’s iconic George Washington at the Battle of Princeton monumentalizes an event central to both Princeton’s and the nation’s history. On January 3, 1777, following the famous crossing of the Delaware River and a decisive win at Trenton, the Continental Army under General Washington consolidated its momentum with a second victory on and around the Princeton University campus, visible in the background of Peale’s composition. Washington’s legendary heroism that day and throughout the Revolution promoted the cult of personality that developed around America’s “Founding Father.” The two sculptures flanking the portrait complicate this legacy, and that of American history more generally. Rush’s bust of Washington was once owned by another president, Thomas Jefferson, like Washington a major enslaver, with a particularly troubling relationship to slavery owing to his intimate relations with a woman he enslaved. The contemporary Mohawk artist Alan Michelson created the bust installed opposite. His work references Washington’s role as Hanödaga:yas, “Town Destroyer” in the Seneca language, who in 1779 ordered the “total destruction and devastation” of Native American settlements. Its polished, mirrored surface reflects viewers back to themselves, undercutting the mythical heroism earlier American artists projected onto Washington, and metaphorically asking, in the artist’s words, “Do you see yourself reflected in this American icon?”\n","remarks":"AMER-STR2_23-27_WLA_01_FA01 Day 1 Cataloguing - Group chat for y1946-78, PP222, and 2025-20"}],"datebegin":1783,"sortnumber":"P 222P","published_date":"2026-02-11 11:26:57.015995","objectid":45237,"dimensions":"237 x 145 cm. (93 5/16 x 57 1/16 in.)\r\nframe: 275 × 179 × 10 cm (108 1/4 × 70 1/2 × 3 15/16 in.)","on_view":true}