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[MUSIC]
KARL KUSSEROW: I'm Karl Kusserow, John Wilmerding
Curator of American Art at the Princeton
University Art Museum.
And we're here today to talk about one of the great icons
of American art and one of the great treasures of Princeton
University, Charles Willson Peale's portrait of George
Washington at the Battle of Princeton.
The painting dates to 1784.
It is a truly fascinating work on any number of levels, not
the least of it, it's close association with Princeton
University as an institution.
So the frame arrives in Princeton in January of 1761,
enclosing a portrait of King George II.
It was hung in what was then the prayer hall,--
It's now the faculty room.
--until the Battle of Princeton, some 16 years later
when, in 1777, the battle culminated at the back door,
so to speak, of Nassau Hall.
During the final stages of the battle, the American
artillery--
And it's known that they were led by Alexander Hamilton,
though it's unclear whether he was the one that actually
fired the fateful shot.
--but at any rate, one of those cannon balls from the
American artillery entered the prayer hall and destroyed the
portrait of King George II originally hung in this frame.
There is testimony, which is accredited that the shot took
off the king's head.
Whether or not that's true, the portrait was destroyed.
And six years later, Peale's portrait of Washington went
into the very frame that had formerly surrounded that of
the other George, King George II.
So in a wonderful act of revolutionary symbolism, you
have the portrait of our George, George Washington
replacing the portrait of King George II of England, who was
the person who gave Princeton, then the College of New
Jersey, it's charter.
We're here now in the faculty room at Nassau Hall, which is
where the portrait that we just left at the art museum
hung for more than two centuries
Happily, Princeton has in its possession another portrait of
George Washington as a great hero, but done in the context
of a battle that had already been won.
He rests his hand very proprietorially on a captured
cannon and leans almost in a jaunty pose, very much at
ease, having won this great victory.
And that's a very different effect from the portrait at
the art museum, which shows the battle still raging.
And the outcome is, in that case, unclear.
So two portraits very similar in subject, but taking place
at different times in the fictive narrative of what's
being shown at the Battle of Princeton.
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