Skip to main content
Exhibition History“Ralph Earl Exhibit,” University of Connecticut Museum of Art, Storrs, CT, October 14 – November 12, 1972.
“Ralph Earl: The Face of the Young Republic,” National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C., November 1, 1991 – January 31, 1992; Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT, February 2 – April 5, 1992; Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, TX, May 16 – July 12, 1992, cat. no. 21.
“American Treasures from the Fenimore Art Museum,” Society of the Four Arts, Palm Beach, FL, February 11 – April 16, 2004.
“George Washington and His Generals,” Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, Mount Vernon, VA, February 21, 2009 – January 10, 2010.
BibliographyDoyle, Joseph Beatty, Frederick William von Steuben and the American Revolution Aide to Washington and Inspector General of the Army. With Account of Posthumous Honors at Various Places (Steubenville, OH: The H. C. Cook Co., 1913), pp. 372, 58 – 64, 310.
“Another Ralph Earl Portrait Finds a Shrine,” in American Collector, vol. XV, no. 7 (August, 1946), p. 4, ill.
Gordon, Robert, “Soldier of Misfortune,” in Adirondack Life (December 1994), pp. 22-29, ill.
Kornhauser, Elizabeth Mankin, American Paintings Before 1945 in the Wadsworth Atheneum, vol. 1 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996), pp. 336 – 344.
Kornhauser, Elizabeth Mankin, Richard L. Bushman, et al., Ralph Earl the Face of the Young Republic (exh. cat. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991), pp.137-139, cat. no. 21, ill.
Perrell, Franklin Hill, et al., The Revolutionary War Founding the New Nation (exh. cat. Roslyn Harbor, NY: Nassau County Luseum of Art, 2000), p. 17, ill.
Lee Wayne E., “From Gentillity to Atrocity: The Continental Army’s Ways of War,” in Army History The Professional Bulletin of Army History (Winter 2006), p. 6, ill.
“George Washington and His Generals,” in Mount Vernon: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow, Volume XXII, No. 2, (fall 2008), p. 13.
Schulz, Emil L. and Laura B. Simo, George Washington and His Generals, (exh. cat. Mount Vernon, VA: Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association of the Union, 2009), p. 109.
Artist
Ralph Earl
(1751 - 1801)
Related Person
Friedrich Wilhelm Ludolf Gerha Steuben
(1730 - 1794)
Major-General Baron Frederick William August von Steuben
Date1786
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsSight: 56 1/2 × 48 × 3 1/2 in. (143.5 × 121.9 × 8.9 cm)
Object numberN0198.1961
Credit LineCollection of the Fenimore Art Museum. Gift of Stephen C. Clark
Photograph by Richard Walker
Label TextMajor Von Steuben (1730-1794) served under President George Washington as Inspector General of the Continental Army. He was known for his effective drill methods, which turned the ragged patriots into a disciplined military force. Congress awarded him the tribute of a silver-hilted sword and 16,000 acres in upstate New York. The Baron spent the later years of his life in the village of Steuben, New York. Ralph Earl, a native of Connecticut, remained loyal to the British during the American Revolution. After the War, he traveled to England where he studied in London with Benjamin West. Although exposed to the most sophisticated artistic developments of the day, Earl chose to retain a flat, linear look in his paintings, a style more in keeping with provincial England and the taste of most Americans. He later returned to the United States and painted a series of masterful portraits of the upper class in western Connecticut, New York, and Vermont, including many Revolutionary War veterans.Exhibition History“Ralph Earl Exhibit,” University of Connecticut Museum of Art, Storrs, CT, October 14 – November 12, 1972.
“Ralph Earl: The Face of the Young Republic,” National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C., November 1, 1991 – January 31, 1992; Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT, February 2 – April 5, 1992; Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, TX, May 16 – July 12, 1992, cat. no. 21.
“American Treasures from the Fenimore Art Museum,” Society of the Four Arts, Palm Beach, FL, February 11 – April 16, 2004.
“George Washington and His Generals,” Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, Mount Vernon, VA, February 21, 2009 – January 10, 2010.
BibliographyDoyle, Joseph Beatty, Frederick William von Steuben and the American Revolution Aide to Washington and Inspector General of the Army. With Account of Posthumous Honors at Various Places (Steubenville, OH: The H. C. Cook Co., 1913), pp. 372, 58 – 64, 310.
“Another Ralph Earl Portrait Finds a Shrine,” in American Collector, vol. XV, no. 7 (August, 1946), p. 4, ill.
Gordon, Robert, “Soldier of Misfortune,” in Adirondack Life (December 1994), pp. 22-29, ill.
Kornhauser, Elizabeth Mankin, American Paintings Before 1945 in the Wadsworth Atheneum, vol. 1 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996), pp. 336 – 344.
Kornhauser, Elizabeth Mankin, Richard L. Bushman, et al., Ralph Earl the Face of the Young Republic (exh. cat. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991), pp.137-139, cat. no. 21, ill.
Perrell, Franklin Hill, et al., The Revolutionary War Founding the New Nation (exh. cat. Roslyn Harbor, NY: Nassau County Luseum of Art, 2000), p. 17, ill.
Lee Wayne E., “From Gentillity to Atrocity: The Continental Army’s Ways of War,” in Army History The Professional Bulletin of Army History (Winter 2006), p. 6, ill.
“George Washington and His Generals,” in Mount Vernon: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow, Volume XXII, No. 2, (fall 2008), p. 13.
Schulz, Emil L. and Laura B. Simo, George Washington and His Generals, (exh. cat. Mount Vernon, VA: Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association of the Union, 2009), p. 109.
On View
Not on view
Related Object/Related Object
