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THE PAMPLIN COLLECTION: AMERICAN FINE ART Paintings and sculpture of America’s nest artists
Return of Columbus in Chains to Cadiz, by Emanuel Leutze (German-American, 1816-1868)
Following his fourth
voyage across the Atlantic, Columbus is depicted
here as a prisoner in San Domingo in what is today the Dominican Republic where he had been charged with administrative misconduct on the basis
of testimony that he
had tyrannized Spanish settlers in the New World. Columbus was returned to Spain an exhausted man. In this painting by Emanuel Leutze, Columbus is shown being returned to Cadiz
in chains—surrounded by natives, settlers and others— where he will be imprisoned
and would remain for six weeks before being freed by King Ferdinand.
Famous for his evocative
and action- lled scenes from American history, Leutze
was brought to America as
a child and then returned
to Germany as an adult to study art. A strong supporter of Europe’s revolutions of 1848, he painted an image of the American Revolution to inspire European reformers. His painting of “Washington Crossing the Delaware” has become iconic in itself. Commissioned by Congress in 1860 to depict
a scene of the settlement of the west, Leutze painted “Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way.”
This painting of Columbus, one of Leutze’s rst major pieces and one that hung at the entrance to the United State Secretary
of State’s of ce,
was completed in 1842 before his return back to the United States. In 1892 the United States Postal Service used this painting for its stamp commemorating
the 400th anniversary
of Columbus’s rst visit to the Americas. The $2 stamp would have paid for expensive heavyweight foreign-destination rates. American Bank Note Company printed 45,550 stamps of this issue.