George Washington,

ca. 1817

Peale’s iconic George Washington at the Battle of Princeton monumentalizes an event central to both Princeton’s and the nation’s history. On January 3, 1777, following the famous crossing of the Delaware River and a decisive win at Trenton, the Continental Army under General Washington consolidated its momentum with a second victory on and around the Princeton University campus, visible in the background of Peale’s composition. Washington’s legendary heroism that day and throughout the Revolution promoted the cult of personality that developed around America’s “Founding Father.” The two sculptures flanking the portrait complicate this legacy, and that of American history more generally. Rush’s bust of Washington was once owned by another president, Thomas Jefferson, like Washington a major enslaver, with a particularly troubling relationship to slavery owing to his intimate relations with a woman he enslaved. The contemporary Mohawk artist Alan Michelson created the bust installed opposite. His work references Washington’s role as Hanödaga:yas, “Town Destroyer” in the Seneca language, who in 1779 ordered the “total destruction and devastation” of Native American settlements. Its polished, mirrored surface reflects viewers back to themselves, undercutting the mythical heroism earlier American artists projected onto Washington, and metaphorically asking, in the artist’s words, “Do you see yourself reflected in this American icon?”