portion of his career are "The Landing of
the Norsemen in America;" "Cromwell and his Daughter;" "The Court of
Queen Elizabeth;" "Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn;" "The Iconoclast," and
his famous and brilliant series of pictures illustrative of the events
of the American War of Independence. The most prominent of these were,
"Washington Crossing the Delaware;" "Washington at Monmouth;"
"Washington at the Battle of Monongahela;" "News from Lexington;"
"Sergeant Jasper," and "Washington at Princeton." These are fine
paintings, possessing striking characteristics, and are all more or less
popular. "Washington Crossing the Delaware" is perhaps the best known,
since it has been engraved, and sold in all parts of the country in that
form.

During his absence in Germany, Leutze did not forget the country of his
choice, as his devotion to American subjects amply testifies. When he
had won a proud name in his art by his labors in Dusseldorf, and had
laid by money enough to justify him in returning to a land where art was
in its infancy, and not over-remunerative, he came back to the United
States, after an absence of eighteen years, and opened a studio in New
York. He found a vast improvement in the public taste and in the demand
for works of art since his departure for the Old World, and, better
still, found that his peculiar field, the historic, was the one most
suited to the tastes of the American public.

It was his intention, in coming back to this country, to devote the time
during which he supposed he would be compelled to wait for orders, to
looking around him and familiarizing himself with the changes that had
taken place in the Union during his absence; but he was never able to
carry out this design, as he had no leisure time. His European
reputation had preceded him hither, and he had scarcely opened his doors
in New York before he was obliged to refuse orders, for lack of time to
execute them. His hands were full from the first, and he at once took
rank as the most thoroughly popular and accomplished artist in the
country.

Early in 1860 he received from the Government of the United States a
commission to decorate one of the marble stairways in the Capitol at
Washington with a mural painting. The painting was to be executed in
fresco, and he chose as his subject, "Westward the Star of Empire Takes
its Way." He entered upon the undertaking with the keenest delight, and
in order to make himself thoroughly acquainted w