Artist:
N.C. Wyeth
(American, 1882 - 1945)
Washington Crossing the Delaware
Medium: Oil on canvas, adhered to hardboard
Date: 1928
Dimensions:
30 1/8 × 18 1/8 in. (76.5 × 46 cm)
Private collection
Accession number: SUPP2000.2242
Research Number: NCW: 2242
InscribedLower right: N. C. WYETH; label adhered to top stretcher member: Photo Art Co., Inc. / 129 N. Warren St. / Trenton, N. J.
ProvenanceFirst Mechanics National Bank, Trenton, NJ; Frank Kennedy (a director of First Mechanics National Bank); descended in family
References
Ann Shipley, "The Society Hour Glass," (Wilmington, DE) Sunday Morning Star, March 25, 1928, p. 17; Christine B. Podmaniczky, N. C. Wyeth, A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings (London: Scala, 2008), M.42, p. 618
Curatorial RemarksThat the Trenton commission originally included more than one image is documented in a letter Wyeth wrote to his father in Feb., 1928, about a trip to Trenton "to hold interviews with various officials of that town, in an effort to gain supporting material for designs to decorate the new National Bank there (NCW to Andrew Newell Wyeth, "Well, this has been a varied and busy week..." and dated in another hand Feb. 24, 1928, Wyeth Family Archives.) A contemporary account published in a Wilmington, DE newspaper (Shipley, above) links this painting to the bank commisson: (Mr. Wyeth) "is ... making sketches of two large mural paintings, nineteen feet wide, and twenty-six feet high,.... One is of Washington crossing the Delaware..." No archival material indicates why this image was not enlarged and executed in Trenton.
Image Source for printed Catalogue Raisonne:transparency directly from painting
Photo Credit:Rick Echelmeyer, 3/2004