Constantino Brumidi’s fresco of the British Surrender at Yorktown
October 17, 1781
On this date, General George Washington accepted Lord Cornwallis’s surrender at Yorktown, marking the penultimate battle of the Revolutionary War. An 1857 fresco by Constantino Brumidi depicting this event currently hangs in the House Members' Dining Room. The work shows Washington in his headquarters at Yorktown, receiving a letter through Cornwallis’s emissary. The formal British surrender ceremony occurred on October 19, 1781. While the historic event was an unqualified success, this painting was not. Originally located in the House Chamber, the fresco, along with fashionable Victorian look of the newly-opened chamber, were not appreciated by all. Harper’s Weekly reported that some critics had proclaimed the décor of the chamber “profuse and gaudy.” An anonymous letter to the supervising architect proclaimed that the fresco was “inappropriate and the execution execrable.” The fresco remained in place until the 1947 remodeling of the House Chamber, when the painted layers of plaster were carefully separated from the structural wall, and the fresco was lowered by a crane outside the Capitol, and installed where it remains today.
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Cite this Highlight
Office of History and Preservation, Office of the Clerk, http://clerk.house.gov/art_history/highlights.html?action=view&intID=40, (December 14, 2010).For Additional Information
Office of History and Preservation(202) 226-1300
history@mail.house.gov