(DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE). Proposals by John Trumbull for Publishing by Subscription a Print...

(DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE). Proposals by John Trumbull for Publishing by Subscription a Print . . . Representing the Declaration of Independence. 4 pages on a folded folio sheet, with 4 pages of accompanying manuscript notes. Quarto and folio sheets, old folds, minor wear. New York, [1818]

Scarce prospectus for the proposed engraving of John Trumbull's painting, Declaration of Independence. The painting was commissioned in 1817 and purchased by the government in 1819. It was made more famous and accessible by the engraving, accomplished by Asher B. Durand in 1820. Only one example in OCLC (University of Virginia), and none traced at auction.
Scarce in itself, the prospectus is made even more interesting by the notes which cover and accompany it: the original manuscript draft of an article published by "Detector" in the National Advocate of 20 October 1818, condemning the painting as historical farce. The author writes, "It may perhaps be a very pretty picture, but it is certainly no representation of the Declaration of Independence. The errors in point of fact with which it abounds, ought to exclude it from the walls of the Capitol, where its exhibition may give to the mistakes of the artist, the semblance and authority of historical truth." The article's author, "Detector," has also annotated the printed list of signers depicted in Trumbull's painting, noting some of them as absent on the 4th of July.