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Declaration of Independence is a 12-by-18-foot (3.7 by 5.5 m) oil-on-canvas painting by the American artist John Trumbull depicting the presentation of the draft of the Declaration of Independence to Congress.
Dec 6, 2023 · Although Trumbull made a career as a portraitist, his real ambition lay in the painting of larger, more ambitious historical compositions. Without doubt, the one that is most frequently reproduced in elementary school history textbooks is The Declaration of Independence, a painting that exists in two versions.
Learn more about the Declaration of Independence painting by John Trumbull on display in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol Building. This painting depicts the moment on June 28, 1776, when the first draft of the Declaration of Independence was presented to the Second Continental Congress.
Conscious of creating an image for succeeding generations, Trumbull made the whole committee—John Adams, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin—present the document to John Hancock, rather than Jefferson alone, which would have been historically accurate.
John Trumbull, The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776, 1818 (placed 1826), oil on canvas, 12' x 18' (Rotunda, U.S. Capitol) The painting that resulted from this collaboration between artist and politician has become one of the most famous images in the history of American art.
Trumbull's Declaration of Independence painting was purchased by the United States Congress, along with three of his other Revolutionary-era portraits, Surrender of General Burgoyne, Surrender of Lord Cornwallis, and General George Washington Resigning His Commission.
The painting features the committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence — John Adams, Robert R. Livingston, Roger Sherman, Thomas Jefferson (presenting the document), and Benjamin Franklin — standing before John Hancock, the President of the Continental Congress.
Dec 6, 2023 · John Trumbull, The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776, 1818 (placed 1826), oil on canvas, 12′ x 18′ (Rotunda, U.S. Capitol) The painting that resulted from this collaboration between artist and politician has become one of the most famous images in the history of American art.
John Trumbull's painting Declaration of Independence has played a significant role in popular conceptions of the Declaration of Independence. The painting is 12-by-18-foot (3.7 by 5.5 m) in size and was commissioned by the United States Congress in 1817; it has hung in the United States Capitol Rotunda since 1826.
In 1817, Congress commissioned John Trumbull to paint four Revolutionary War scenes for the rotunda. Twenty years later, four other artists began filling the remaining spaces with scenes of America's settlement by Europeans.
