Teach with Collections: Charles Willson Peale, George Washington at the Battle of Princeton

George Washington at the Battle of Princeton, as its title implies, evokes the battle itself (one that Peale had experienced firsthand as an officer of the Philadelphia militia) and makes specific reference to events from it, notably the death of Washington's friend General Hugh Mercer, shown expiring in the arms of surgeon Benjamin Rush, a blood-stained bayonet lying at the general's feet indicating the cause of death. With sword poised in readiness, Washington gestures to the battle raging behind him, where Continental troops, pistols and muskets blazing, force the British soldiers away from their Nassau Hall stronghold—or, in the pictorial logic of the painting, literally out of existence, off the picture plane, in the direction that Washington's raised weapon appears to impel them. Meanwhile, a diminutive horseman bearing a white flag, just visibly rendered approaching from Nassau Hall, makes apparent that Mercer's ultimate sacrifice, and by implication that of others in the patriot cause, had not been in vain, as American forces would soon carry the day and thereby gain invaluable confidence in their larger campaign against a formidable adversary.

Conversation prompts:

There are several parts to this composition. What would you say is the focus of the painting, and why?

How are the three figures to the right of Washington depicted? How do they connect with one another?

Peale represented several geographically and temporally distinct events in one painting‚—what stylistic choices did he use to unify the composition?