Abstract
HE full-length allegorical portrait of William Pitt by Charles Willson Peale is only painting that directly links colonial Virginia with American Revolution. The portrait is also Peale's first commission of public importance. And so this enormous canvas, eight feet high and five feet wide, deserves attention from all who are interested in Peale as an artist, and from all who are interested in revolutionary spirit as manifest in art. Here Earl of Chatham, statesman of Year of Wonders, silvertongued champion of British liberty, stands before us clad in a Roman Consular Habit. A cloak draped over his tunic falls to ground behind him. His sturdy, sandalled legs are bare from knee. And we find him in very act of speaking in Defence of Claims of AMERICAN Colonies, on Principles of Constitution.' His lordship has not only appeared for occasion in garb of republican Rome, but with a series of exhibits appropriate to his theme, drawn from that and other periods of history. His left hand holds Magna Charta. His right arm, extended, points to a statue of BRITISH Liberty sculptured in act of trampling underfoot petition of Stamp Act of I765. There can be no doubt of all this, as her right hand rests on British shield, her left holds a liberty cap on a pole and there at her feet paper is clearly marked Congress at New-York. Below her, in bas-relief on side of her tall pedestal we behold an American Indian, alert and watchful, bow in hand and a dog at his side. Bow and dog, we are informed, represent the natural Faithfulness and Firmness of AMERICA. In foreground of picture a Roman altar stands, its flame alight and laurel crown of civic virtue resting near flame. Carved on corners of altar and draped with sculptured laurel we see heads of Sidney, on our left, Hampden on right, and between them a banner
Published Version
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