Leutze, Emanuel
LEUTZE, EMANUEL (1816-1868), American artist, was born at Gmtind, Wiirttemberg, on the 24th of May 1816, and as a child was taken by his parents to Philadelphia, where he early displayed talent as an artist. At the age of twenty-five he had earned enough to take him to Dusseldorf for a course of art study at the royal academy. Almost immediately he began the painting of historical subjects, his first work, " Columbus before the Council of Salamanca," being purchased by the Dusseldorf Art Union. In 1860 he was commissioned by the United States Congress to decorate a stairway in the Capitol at Washington, for which he painted a large composition, " Westward the Star of Empire takes its Way." His best-known work, popular through engraving, is " Washington crossing the Delaware," a large canvas containing a score of life-sized figures; it is now owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. He became a member of the National Academy of Design in 1860, and died at Washington, D.C., on the 18th of July 1868.
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
