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Dimensions: 50 1/2 by 40 1/4 in.
(128.3 by 102.2 cm)
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Provenance: PROPERTY OF THE MASONIC TEMPLE ASSOCIATION OF DETROIT
(probably) Crosby Opera House Art Association, Chicago, Illinois
Augusta L. Voight
Gift to the present owner from the above, before 1927
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Literature: Friedrich von Boetticher, Malerwerke des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, 2 vols., Leipzig, Germany, [1891-1901], 1948
Moritz Blanckarts, Düsselforfer Künstler; Nekrologie aus den letzten zehn Jahren, Stuttgart, Germany, 1877
Bernd Lasch, "Emanuel Leutze als Bildnis Maler," Pemplefort: Sammlung kleinen Düsseldorfer Kunstschriften, no. 19, ed. H.W. Keim and Karl Koetschau, Düsseldorf, Germany, 1926
Raymond Louis Stehle, "Emanuel Leutze, 1816-1868," Records of the Columbia Historical Society of Washington, D.C., 1969-70, pp. 323, 324, illustrated p. 322
Barbara S. Groseclose, Emanuel Leutze, 1816-1868: Freedom Is the Only King, Washington, D.C., 1975, no. 234, p. 121
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Notes: General Ulysses S. Grant in His Tent by Emanuel Leutze is one of the few known portraits of Grant painted from life. Grant was appointed commander or the Union Army in 1864 and accepted General Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox in 1865, ending the Civil War. He went on to serve as Secretary of War under President Andrew Johnson, and was elected President of the United States himself in 1868, serving two consecutive terms. In addition to the present painting, at least one other portrait of Grant in his military uniform by Leutze survives; measuring 44 by 34 inches it was sold at Anderson Galleries, New York, December 14, 1943 and is presently in the collection of the Union Club, New York.
Leutze came to the United States as a young boy, and though he spent most of his adult life in Germany, his portraits and paintings of the significant figures and historic military events of 18th and 19th century America earned him the reputation for which he is still known today. The artist's family immigrated to the United States and settled in Philadelphia in 1825. By 1834, Leutze was studying drawing with a local Philadelphia artist and set out to become a portraitist. Subsequent exhibitions of his work at the Artist's Fund Society led local patrons to encourage him to continue his studies abroad and provide the funds for his return to Europe. Leutze arrived in Düsseldorf in 1841 and enrolled at the Royal Art Academy as a student of history painting. The young artist was disenchanted by the strict instruction offered at the Academy and soon left, establishing his own studio shortly afterward. Following a two year tour of Germany and Italy, Leutze returned to Düsseldorf in 1845, where he became a leading figure in local artistic circles. Natalie Spassky notes that, "In 1848 he was one of the prime movers in the founding of the Makasten, an artist's association of liberal persuasion, and in 1856 he helped inaugurate the German Art Union. His studio was for many years a center for American artists who came to study in Düsseldorf. He served as friend and adviser to Eastman Johnson, Worthington Whittredge, Albert Bierstadt, and William Stanley Haseltine, among others" (American Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Vol. II, New York, 1985, p. 15).
Though he lived in Germany, Leutze's attention turned to America in 1849, when he began painting Washington Crossing the Delaware (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), his iconic and enduring image of General Washington leading the American Revolutionary Army across the Delaware River on December 26, 1776 to surprise advancing British troops in the ensuing Battle of Trenton. Leutze came to the United States briefly in 1851 when Washington Crossing the Delaware was first exhibited and by 1859 he decided to take a studio in New York's Tenth Street Studio Building. Though his family remained in Düsseldorf, Leutze began his career anew as a painter of American military battles and heroes, seeking commissions from the United States Congress. Barbara S. Groseclose writes, "...in the heart of the Civil War years, Leutze appears to have conceived a program, never realized, to paint portraits of Union military men. At his death five of these portraits were in his studio, ranging from small painted busts to moderately sized canvases with highly detailed field settings. Only one of the portraits, that of General Grant, was executed on a large scale" (Emanuel Leutze, 1816-1868: Freedom Is the Only King, Washington, D.C., 1975, p. 119).
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