Trumbull also painted more elegant furniture, covered the windows with heavy draperies rather than venetian blinds, and decorated the room’s rear wall with captured British military flags, believing that such trophies were probably displayed there. Some of the room’s architectural features (e.g., the number and placement of doors and windows) differ from historical fact, having been based on an inaccurate sketch that Thomas Jefferson produced from memory in Paris. In all, 47 individuals (42 of the 56 signers and 5 other patriots) are depicted, all painted from life or life portraits. He excluded those for whom no authoritative image could be found or created, and he included delegates who were not in attendance at the time of the event. When Trumbull was planning the smaller painting in 1786, he decided not to attempt a wholly accurate rendering of the scene rather, he made his goal the preservation of the images of the Nation’s founders.
#Declaration of independence facts series#
It is an enlarged version of a smaller painting (approximately 21 inches by 31 inches) that the artist had created as part of a series to document the events of the American revolution. Congress commissioned from John Trumbull (1756–1843) in 1817. This is the first completed painting of four Revolutionary-era scenes that the U.S. This event occurred in the Pennsylvania State House, now Independence Hall, in Philadelphia. With him stand the other members of the committee that created the draft: John Adams, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston and Benjamin Franklin.
![declaration of independence facts declaration of independence facts](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/thepatriotsandthedeclarationofindependence-111211190527-phpapp02/95/the-patriots-and-the-declaration-of-independence-4-728.jpg)
In the central group in the painting, Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration, is shown placing the document before John Hancock, president of the Congress. Less than a week later, on July 4, 1776, the Declaration was officially adopted, it was later signed on August 2, 1776. This painting depicts the moment on June 28, 1776, when the first draft of the Declaration of Independence was presented to the Second Continental Congress. The document stated the principles for which the Revolutionary War was being fought and which remain fundamental to the nation.