Washington Crossing the Delaware: Restoring an American Masterpiece, Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin (Fall, 2011)

Emanuel Leutze's life-size __Washington Crossing the Delaware__ commemorates the critical moment in the American Revolution when George Washington led a surprise attack against troops supporting the British forces in Trenton. When Leutze created the painting in 1850, after he had returned from America to his native Germany, he was hoping to rally support for the revolutionary movements then sweeping Europe. He sent the work to New York in 1851, and within four months 50,000 people had paid to see it. Today the painting is an icon of American visual culture and one of the most beloved objects in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 2007, Leutze's masterpiece became the focus of the most ambitious conservation and reframing project in the museum's history. This book is a behind-the-scenes report on that project, prefaced by an account of the history of the painting's acquisition and display at the museum. Emanuel Leutze's life-size "Washington Crossing the Delaware" commemorates the critical moment in the American Revolution when George Washington led a surprise attack against troops supporting the British forces in Trenton, New Jersey. This book presents an account of the painting's acquisition and display at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Washington crossing the Delaware and the Metropolitan Museum / Carrie Rabora Barratt Emanuel Leutze's Washington crossing the Delaware through conservators' eyes / Lance Mayer and Gay Myers Setting a jewel : re-creating the original frame for Washington crossing the Delaware / Eli Wilner and Suzanne Smeaton.