Ohio History Journal

MICHAEL J. DEVINE

The Historical Paintings

of William Henry Powell

In 1865 the Ohio General Assembly commissioned William Henry

Powell to paint a large historic picture depicting the heroic naval victory

of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry and his men over the British in

the Battle of Lake Erie in 1813. A former resident of Cincinnati, Powell

had won fame in the eastern urban centers of the United States as well

as European capitals, and his majestic "Perry's Victory" hung in

Ohio's capitol for over one hundred years as one of the state's most

valuable art treasures.' However, from its inception the painting was

a controversial item. Questions arose concerning what seemed to be an

excessive payment for the work, critics attacked the quality of the

painting and its historical accuracy, and public confusion developed

when the artist painted an almost identical version of "Perry's Victory"

for the United States Capitol. This study of William Henry Powell

and his work seeks to detail Powell's remarkable career as an artist

of historical scenes, examine the politics surrounding the commissioning

of Powell by political leaders conscious of the public's growing taste

for historical art, and assess Powell's works and the public reactions

they generated.

Powell was the product of an unusual, brilliant flowering of portrait

and landscape artists in frontier Cincinnati which included such diverse

talents as Thomas Worthington Whittridge, James H. Beard, Lilly

Martin Spencer, Abraham G. D. Tuthill, and John P. Frankenstein.

Born in New York on February 14, 1823, Powell moved to Cincinnati

with his family at the age of seven, and he soon demonstrated a

Michael J. Devine is Executive Director of the Greater Cincinnati Consortium of

Colleges and Universities.

1. "Perry's Victory" was removed from the Capitol while the rotunda was being

painted in 1967 and placed in storage by the Department of Public Works. Recently,

however, the Ohio Historical Society has had the painting restored with funds provided

by the Ohio American Revolution Bicentennial Advisory Commission and it is once

again on display in the Capitol. Two companion paintings, "The Wright Brothers"

painted by Dwight Mutchler (1959) and "Edison" by Howard Chandler Christy (1950),

have been locked in storage since 1967 in the care of the Ohio Historical Society.

Christy's "Greenville Treaty" (1945) is still on public display in the statehouse. See

report of Charles Pratt to Ohio Historical Society Board of Trustees, July 8, 1967,

Ohio Historical Society Records.

66                                                        OHIO HISTORY

remarkable talent for drawing. In 1835, at a time when the city was

experiencing an awakening as a cultural center, young Powell's portrait

of the legendary Scottish chieftain Rodrich Dhru attracted the attention

of Nicholas Longworth, Cincinnati's leading patron of the arts, who

provided Powell with financial assistance and encouragement to seek

the best training available, which at that time meant study in the cities

of America's eastern seaboard and the cultural centers of Europe.

Longworth also provided Powell with the appropriate letters of intro-

duction to allow him entry into the eastern academies.² Although

painting was by the 1840s becoming a respected profession in midwestern

cities such as Cincinnati, for an aspiring artist with Powell's talent

the major cities of the East and Europe were the only places which

offered the training, recognition, and financial rewards which would

allow a painter to devote his full time to his profession. Thus Powell's

initial recogniton came in the usual manner-as a portrait painter; how-

ever, he displayed more versatility than his contemporaries in Ohio and

developed into a landscape and historical painter, an increasingly

popular art form with an American public demanding higher standards

from its artists.³

In 1837 Powell entered the New York studio of Henry Inman, who

was to be his teacher and mentor for many years. By the age of twenty-

five Powell was already a popular and promising artist with a consid-

erable reputation. In 1844 he visited Europe to further his studies in

Florence and Rome.⁴ Upon his return to the United States Powell

secured, through the influence of his friends and considerable good

fortune, a major commission from the United States Congress which

had a dramatic effect upon his career.

In 1847 Powell won out over sixty competitors, including Samuel

F. B. Morse, and received a commission to paint a historical scene

for the remaining vacant panel in the Rotunda of the United States

Capitol. This was a major coup for a relatively young and unknown

artist. Powell's selection raised questions in art circles, as he had no

claim to the job in terms of rank or age. Apparently, consideration

of his early residence in the populous state of Ohio was an important

2. Art Journal, (1879), 351; New York Tribune, October 7,1879; Henry B.

Tuckerman, Book of Artists (New York, 1867), 458-59. Emma J. Hollingsworth,

ed. Capitol Guide Catalogue of the Paintings and Portraits of the Governors of Ohio

(Columbus, 1910).

3. Donald MacKenzie, "Early Ohio Painters: Cincinnati, 1830-1850," Ohio History,

73 (Spring, 1964), 111-18, 131-32; Eugene Roseboom, The History of the State of

Ohio, IV, The Civil War Years, 1850-1873 (Columbus, 1944), 165.

4. Art Journal, (1879), 351; Fredrick A. Gutheim, The Federal City (Washington,

D.C., 1976), 125.

William Henry Powell                                                    67

political factor in the selection process, but Powell also had the backing

of influential friends in New York.⁵ Among those supporting Powell's

selection were prominent literary figures, including the author Wash-

ington Irving, whose biography of Christopher Columbus had inspired

an earlier painting by Powell depicting Columbus before the Council

of Ecclesiastics at Salamanca. In a letter to the library committee of

Congress, Irving wrote that Powell "possesses genius and talent of

superior order and ... he is destined to win great triumphs for

American art."⁶

Choosing for his theme "The Discovery of the Mississippi by

DeSoto," Powell used his generous commission of twelve thousand

dollars to return to Europe where he worked on his assignment and

furthered his studies in Paris under European masters, as was the

practice for American artists at this time. While in Europe, Powell

became popular at the court of Napolean III and befriended leading

French intellectuals such as Alexander Dumas, Lamartine, and the

Duke de Morny. The emperor Napoleon III approved of Powell's

work, as did most French critics, and allowed the American painter

to use the horses in his stable as models. After almost seven years in

France, Powell returned to the United States with his painting which he

displayed in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore on his way to the

capital, causing one Washington newspaper to observe that the painting

would be "second hand" by the time it arrived.⁷ However, once

unveiled before a large crowd in the Rotunda of the United States

Capitol, the huge melodramatic painting received a generally enthusiastic

reception. One witness observed, "nobody could deny the fact that it

was a great success. ... we can already pronounce that the composition

is one of the most eloquent pages of descriptive history we possess."⁸

5. Henry Inman, Powell's teacher, seemed at one time certain to receive the

coveted commission, however his ill health and eventual death prevented him from doing

the final panel. Charles E. Fairman, Art and Articles of the Capitol of the United

States of America. U.S. Congress, Senate Document No. 95, 69th Congress, 1st Session

(1927), 78, 105-07, 126-27, 158-59. E. P. Richardson, Painting in America: The

Story of 450 Years, (New York, 1956), 201-02; also see Tuckerman, 458. The story of

congressional interest in providing art for the Capitol, which began in 1836, is detailed

in George R. Nielson, "Painting and Politics in Jacksonian America," Capitol Studies

(Spring, 1972), 87-92.

6. Irving to Library Committee of Congress, January 7, 1847; Henry Brevoort to

Gentlemen, January 7, 1847, Architect of the U.S. Capitol, Records, Washington, D.C.

Hereinafter referred to as U.S. Capitol Architect, Records. Washington Daily Intelligence,

January 20, 1847.

7. Washington Sentinel, February 1, 1855.

8. Washington Sentinel, February 17, 1855. The elaborate paintings in the Capital

Rotunda provided art critics with ample opportunities for ridicule, and it became almost

a tradition for sophisticated observers to criticize the Capitol's art work. One critic noted

an "over-crowded canvas" in Powell's "DeSoto" and observed that the horses were

68                                                    OHIO HISTORY

The prestige of having his work displayed alongside such famous

American paintings as John Trumble's "Declaration of Independence"

and "Surrender of Lord Cornwallis," Robert Weir's "Embarkation of

the Pilgrims," and John Vanderlyn's "Landing of Columbus" made

Powell a leader among his contemporaries in the field of historical

painting. It was therefore not surprising that his home state of Ohio

would seek to enlist his talents to help decorate the newly completed

State Capitol in Columbus.

The year following the exhibition of "DeSoto Discovering the Mis-

sissippi," Powell received a commission from the Ohio General Assem-

bly to render a painting of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry's decisive

victory over the British on Lake Erie. The commission specified that

the painting, to be placed in the Rotunda of the Capitol, should be

a minimum of twelve feet by sixteen feet in size and "sufficiently

elaborate to convey full and truthful history of that great battle."

The commission also specified that the work was to be completed

within five years at a cost of "not more than five thousand dollars"-

a rather modest fee, considering Powell received twelve thousand

dollars for "DeSoto."9

To complete the painting, which would be entitled "Perry's Victory,"

Powell worked in his studio in New York City, and at the Brooklyn

Navy Yard. He also traveled to Rhode Island, Perry's home state, to.

study naval vessels of the type used on the Great Lakes during the

War of 1812. The meticulous research and careful painting took longer

than Powell had anticipated. Meanwhile, he supplemented his income

by doing portraits, including that of Washington Irving which was

unveiled in April 1860 at the New York Academy of Music amidst

great applause. This portrait, commissioned by the New York Historical

Society to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the author's birth,

was perhaps Powell's most successful portrait. 10

Finally, in January 1865, almost nine years after his original com-

mission, Powell was prepared to deliver his finished painting to Ohio.

However, after temporarily exhibiting the painting in Rhode Island,

Powell brought his completed painting not to Columbus, but to

Washington, where, with the assistance of the architect of the United

States Capitol, he temporarily exhibited "Perry's Victory" in the

"too small and badly drawn." George A. Townsend, Washington, Outside and Inside

(Cincinnati, 1873), 750. Also see Richardson, Painting in America, 133; Joseph R.

Frese, Federal Patronage of Painting to 1860, Capitol Studies (Winter, 1974), 71-76.

9. Ohio General Assembly, House Joint Resolution (April 17, 1857); Leslie's

Illustrated Newspaper, May 9, 1857, 351.

10. Art Journal(1879), 351.

William Henry Powell                                                  69

Rotunda.11 Powell had two reasons for taking this action: first, he was

anxious to secure another commission from the United States Congress

and hoped that the exhibition of "Perry's Victory" would inspire the

legislators to offer him further employment; and second, Powell was

in the process of renegotiating his fee with the Ohio General Assembly

and apparently wanted the Ohioans to believe that he would sell his

painting to the United States Congress or another buyer unless the

original commission of five thousand dollars was increased.

In March 1865, while "Perry's Victory" was being displayed in the

United States Capitol, Powell wrote to the Ohio General Assembly and

claimed to have done a more elaborate painting than was originally

requested. The artist noted that he was faced with cost increases and

appealed for "generosity and justice" in asking for a payment of fifteen

thousand dollars-three times the amount originally appropriated!¹²

A Select Committee of members of the Ohio General Assembly

appointed to examine the painting's quality journeyed to Washington

to view the work and evaluate its artistic merits. Whether the members

of the Select Committee were chosen for their politics or aesthetic

judgment, they nevertheless reported unanimously that they found "the

design and execution of the work tendered to the State to be superior

to that contemplated when the picture was ordered. . ." The committee's

report also noted that the artist was "a distinguished citizen of Ohio"

who had spent considerable sums of his own funds, and therefore

recommend acceptance of the painting at the figure requested by the

artist. (Two members of the committee dissented from this recom-

mendation, considering the artist's demands exorbitant while agreeing

that the painting was indeed of high quality.)¹³ Ultimately, the Ohio

Senate voted to instruct the Governor to purchase the painting for ten

thousand dollars and have it installed in the Rotunda.¹⁴ Meanwhile,

Powell received from Congress a commission of twenty-five thousand

dollars to paint a second version of a naval scene, to hang in the east

staircase of the Senate wing in the United States Capitol.15

11. "Journal of B. (Benjamin) B. (Blake) French," Library of Congress, Manuscripts

Division; New York Times, October 14, 1864. A note attached to Powell's petition

stated "The painting referred to we have seen, and concur in the universal opinion of

its excellence." Among the signers of this statement were Ohio's John Sherman,

Benjamin F. Wade, Salmon P. Chase and William Dennison.

12. William Powell to Ohio General Assembly, March 7, 1865, Ohio Historical

Society Archives, P.A., 236.

13. "Report of the Select Committee," Ohio General Assembly. Senate Journal, 1865,

412.

14. Ohio Senate Journal, 56th General Assembly, vol. LXI (1865), 507; Ohio State

Journal, April 12, 1865.

15. United States Senate, Document No. 60, 59th Congress, 1st Session, No. 3849,

vol. 2.

72                                                      OHIO HISTORY

so-called "Discovery of the Mississippi by DeSoto." It is beneath criticism.

Its total want of a knowledge of the subject, its wretched coloring and bad

drawing, illustrate historically the crude condition of Congress, and makes a

beautiful painting to cut up; but I will not waste time in useless comments.

Lately, however, Mr. Powell who admits that DeSoto was bad business, has

hung up in the Rotunda of the Capitol a painting he calls "Perry's Victory,"

and claims on this showing to have improved. I am sorry to say that the claim

is not tenable. The artist has but one point to make, and that was a

representation of Perry, as he passed in an open boat from his disabled vessel

to a fresh one. He has failed here as he failed with DeSoto . . the painting

is a mean, distasteful, and abominable from its utter poverty.... The artist

unable to understand the simplicity of true greatness, drops the work to take

up the theatrical. His Perry is the Perry of the stage.... Nor has the Artist

improved in other respects. The water is not water. If that is a correct

representation of the condition of Lake Erie, Perry could have walked from

one vessel to another.

.... This painting belongs to Ohio. Poor Ohio pays a thousand dollars for

it, Congress sees that and goes twenty-four thousand better. Senator Sherman

[John Sherman of Ohio], to use a flash phrase, 'didn't see it,' and used his

efforts to defeat the barbarous resolution. 18

Not all the criticism focused on the quality of the art. At least one

Ohio politician loudly voiced his consternation that a figure of a black

man, depicted at Perry's side, would enjoy a prominent place in the

statehouse. His remarks were overheard and recorded by a reporter for

the conservative Ohio Statesman, which then printed the politician's

crude comment. This incident lead to a sharp rebuke by the Statesman's

chief competitor, the Journal, which editorialized as follows:

$10,000 for a Nigger. A senator yesterday furnished considerable merriment to

persons in the Rotunda, by passing a remark he made touching the great

painting of Mr. Powell, representing Commodore Perry's victory on Lake

Erie. In 1857, we believe, the Legislature made an appropriation of $5,000 to pay

for this painting but in consideration of the inflated prices at the time it was

painted, Mr. Powell feels compelled to ask $15,000 for it. The Senator referred

to glanced at the picture, and described a negro in the background, and

remarked, "Well ten thousand dollars for a nigger." The crowd at once saw

the point, and enjoyed the joke exceedingly.-Ohio Statesman.

The foregoing paragraph affords an admirable illustration of the morals of

the Ohio Statesman. Its negrophobia blinds it to good taste, common sense,

and historical truth. It exposes the meanness of its spirit and the paucity of

its information. The historical fact is that Hannibal, Perry's servant, was taken

into his master's boat at his own urgent request. We do not hesitate to entertain

a very firm conviction that if the Editor of the Statesman had been in the

Lake Erie fight, he would have been too "conservative" to run the gauntlet

of the British fire. A "nigger in the boat" would have furnished him an

18. Ibid.

William Henry Powell                                              73

excellent excuse. The Statesman's Senator-extemporized, we presume-would

have been its editor's bosom friend in that emergency.19

Much of the controversy about the painting concerned its historical

accuracy, and despite Powell's careful research in Rhode Island and the

Brooklyn Naval Yard many critics disputed minor details in the compo-

sition. A sensitive artist, Powell heard his critics and sought to have the

correctness of his paintings verified. Therefore, he must have been

comforted to read a letter he received from one survivor of the battle

who had viewed the painting while it was displayed in Washington and

wrote:

I take pleasure in complying with your request to add my testimony to the

correctness of your likeness of the late Commodore 0. H. Perry, and portrayed

in your magnificent painting of that battle. I have no hesitation Sir in

stating that in my opinion you have given the most striking and life-like

representation of that hero that has ever appeared on canvas and.... This

painting in all its details with one exception gives a truthful and vivid

representation of the scene it portrays.20

Undaunted by his critics, Powell began work on his second version

of the famous naval engagement, to be entitled "The Battle of Lake

Erie," and of greater dimensions-twenty feet by thirty feet-than

"Perry's Victory." Although the second version was to be considerably

larger than the first, Powell used the same drawing as his earlier

painting and merely enlarged the background scenery, a practice not

uncommon in Powell's day.²¹

In completing "The Battle of Lake Erie," Powell encountered the

same financial problems and criticisms he had experienced in painting

and exhibiting "Perry's Victory." In November, 1871, six years after

having received his commission from Congress, Powell wrote to

Senator Lot M. Morrill of Maine, chairman of the Committee on the

Library of Congress, and expressed concern that the legislator had

neglected Powell's earlier request for payment. Informing Morrill that

the painting could not be completed for an opening of the Congressional

session in December, Powell noted "your disappointment cannot equal

mine, for all my material interests would be benefitted could that

19. Ohio State Journal, April 1, 1865.

20. The writer did not indicate in this communication what his "one exception"

was. Usher Parsons to Powell, October 20, 1863, Records, U.S. Capitol Architect.

Parsons had served with Perry as a surgeon and was noted for giving talks to patriotic

and historical groups on the Battle of Lake Erie.

21. David Lynn, Architect of the Capitol, to Miss Wenona Merlin, March 24, 1937,

Records, U.S. Capitol Architect.

74                                                         OHIO HISTORY

be accomplished... but it is not possible." Claiming that he had

worked continuously for six to eight hours a day, Powell stated that

"the work grew under my hands, and I found that I carried out my

assurance to your committee, in which at the time given I firmly

believed, I must do so by inferior work, which neither be just to the

government which entrusted to my honor the best evidence of my

artistic ability, nor to my own reputation.... I have produced the

best work that I am able to do but at a much greater cost of time

than I anticipated. That is my loss, and a bitter loss it is." Stating

that the painting could not be ready until the following March, Powell

announced that he would stop work entirely on "The Battle of Lake

Erie" to accept portrait work, "which will give me a means of

supporting my family." Powell concluded his letter by writing: "I shall

not willingly deliver the work from my hands with any of the details

lower in execution than the standard I have adopted."²² The question

of payment was finally resolved, but it was not until the spring of

1873 that Powell informed the architect of the Capitol that "The Battle

of Lake Erie" was ready for framing and exhibition.²³

The second version of Perry's heroic triumph, painted in the grand

romantic style popular in his time, was perhaps Powell's best work-at

least the artist himself thought so.²⁴ But once again critics found

imperfections. Henry C. Bispham, a noted New York art critic, found

the "figure badly drawn and painted, and in some respects not as

good as DeSoto ... they are too woodeny." However, Bispham

conceded that the background was "well painted, composed and

drawn."²⁵ Once again the art critics were less appreciative than the

general public and their elected representatives, who found Powell's

historical paintings to their liking.

Powell's rendering of two nearly identical paintings, while a fairly

common practice in his era, resulted in great public confusion. Both

enormous paintings were permanently displayed in public buildings

and for over a century were viewed by millions of visitors. Also, both

22. Powell to Lot Morrill, November 25, 1871, National Archives, U.S. Library of

Congress, Manuscripts Div., Misc. Manuscripts, No. 148.

23. Powell to Edward Clark, March 30, 1873, Records, U.S. Capitol Architect.

24. Art Journal(1879), 351.

25. Quoted in Townsend, Washington Inside and Outside. 749-50. For an interesting

evaluation of Powell's naval scenes, see Charles Lee Lewis, "Powell's Victory on Lake

Erie," The Capitol Dome (July, 1970), 2-6. Lewis, a naval historian, finds three faults

with the painting: first, Perry carried over his shoulder his banner "Don't give up the

ship," not the Stars and Stripes, when he transferred from the Lawrence to the Niagara;

second, Perry and his men appear to be wearing uniforms of the Civil War period rather

than the War of 1812; and third, Perry's small boat should have only five occupants

and his little brother Alexander should not be among them.

76                                                       OHIO HISTORY

of the Architect to publishers and radio broadcasters. Meanwhile,

groups of Ohio school children were told by guards that the version

in Ohio, "Perry's Victory," had originally been intended for the United

States Capitol, but was rejected because a black man was depicted in

the same boat with the commodore.²⁷

During the final years of his life Powell painted nothing to equal

the majestic historical works which hung in the capitols in Washington

and Columbus. He continued his portrait painting and maintained an

elegant and expensive social life in New York, where his parties were

ranked among the most fashionable in that city. His wife was a woman

of considerable social standing and frequent visitors to their home

included the wife of Judge Theodore Roosevelt-the mother of the

future president-,Mrs. John Charles Fremont, and Mrs. Charles

O'Connor, the estranged wife of the famous attorney who defended

Jefferson Davis in his trial for treason. Powell delighted in the opera

and had a considerable reputation as a music critic. His French and

Italian were flawless and he was often mistaken as a French citizen

when traveling in Europe. In his final years his fortune disappeared

and he was weakened by poor health; however, he continued to work

in his studio until his death in 1879.28

Although the mid-nineteenth century produced many talented artists

who polished their skills in European art centers, the art of the period

lacked real greatness. Like their contemporaries in European academies

with whom they studied, popular American painters of this era

produced historical scenes featuring melodramatic, cluttered canvases

of minute portraits. They tended to be exceptionally sentimental in

portraying their historical subjects and seemed to appeal to their

young nation's need for psychological reassurance of American

greatness. Producing romantic works of unreal beauty, most art-

ists of Powell's day, with the remarkable exception of Winslow

Homer, tended to ignore the period's relevant burning issues-the

slavery controversy, Civil War, and industrial revolution. While the

giant historical paintings of Powell and his contemporaries were not

highly esteemed by art historians and critics, they were much appreciated

by a public anxious to view dramatic and inspiring art in their public

buildings.²⁹

27. David Lynn to Bruce Chapman, Mutual Broadcasting System, "The Answer

Man Program," October 8, 1942; Charles E. Fairman, Art Curator, U.S. Capitol,

to Henry Ishman, June 15, 1934; Memorandum, Judge Earl Hoover of Cleveland,

August 22, 1966, Records, Architect of the U.S. Capitol.

28. Art Journal(1879), 351.

29. Wendell D. Garrett, "A Century of Aspiration" in W. Garrett and others, ed.,

The Arts in America: The Nineteenth Century (New York, 1969), 21, 24-25.

William Henry Powell                                            77

While not among the great figures in the history of American art,

Powell is nevertheless significant as an early example of a highly

successful portrait artist who expanded his basic skills and produced

more complex and elaborate historical paintings. The first artist from

Ohio to gain a national reputation and receive major commissions

from the United States Congress and the Ohio General Assembly, he

is best remembered for his historical paintings, particularly his two

massive and dramatic depictions of the American naval triumph on

Lake Erie. His career is representative of those nineteenth century

artists who, after gaining local success as portrait painters, journeyed

to the east coast and Europe to sharpen their skills for an American

public becoming more sophisticated in its tastes and beginning to

demand higher standards from its artists.