The Prayer at Valley Forge, 1975

The Prayer at Valley Forge, 1975
by
Arnold Friberg (1913—2010)

Oil on canvas.

To ensure accuracy, Friberg, an American Artist, studied Washington’s actual uniform at the Smithsonian Institution and sketched during the winter near the banks of the Schuylkill River at Valley Forge, PA.

It was a cold that chilled to the bone, he said, a cold that froze my fingers until I could no longer sketch nor even snap my camera.

Paine’s pamphlet Common Sense (1775), urging the colonies to declare their independence, found 150,000 purchasers in a population of less than 3 million — the equivalent today of a sale of 14 million.

— Richard Brookhiser
Gentleman Revolutionary: Gouverneur Morris, the Rake Who Wrote the Constitution (2003)