Attributed to ADOLPH ULRICH WERTMULLER (1751-1811)
Attributed to ADOLPH ULRICH WERTMULLER (1751-1811)

Washington at the Battle of Trenton

Details
Attributed to ADOLPH ULRICH WERTMULLER (1751-1811)
Wertmuller, Adolph Urlich
Washington at the Battle of Trenton
oil on cradled panel
36 x 25in.
Provenance
Ira Nelson Morris (1875-1942), Chicago
Parke-Bernet Galleries Inc., New York, January 12, 1963, lot 156
Sotheby's New York, June 19, 1981, lot 22
Exhibited
Daytona Beach, Florida, Museum of Arts and Sciences, 1983-1991 and 1993-1997

Lot Essay

Born in Sweden, Adolph Ulrich Wertmuller (1751-1811) studied painting in Stockholm, Rome and Paris, where he painted members of Europe's aristocracy. In 1794, he moved to Philadelphia, then the nation's capitol, where he painted several members of Congress and George Washington. After a four-year sojourn in Sweden, he moved back to America in 1800. He had married Betsey Henderson, the grand-daughter of the Swedish painter, Gustavus Hesselius (1682-1755) and the couple lived upon their farm, "Claymont," in Newcastle, County, Delaware (Scott, "A Forgotten Artist--Adolph Wertmuller" (1964); Groce and Wallace, The New-York Historical Society's Dictionary of Artists in America 1564-1860 (New Haven, 1957), pp. 673-674).

The painting's cradled panel indicates European restoration and it is believed that the painting was acquired in Sweden by its early twentieth-century owner, Ira Nelson Morris (1875-1942) while he was minister plenipotentiary to Sweden under the presidency of Woodrow Wilson.

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