'My heart lifts': Battle of Monmouth painting saved from sale, new exhibits coming
Last fall, word that Monmouth County Historical Association might sell a priceless painting of the Battle of Monmouth set the local-historian community ablaze with objections.
On Monday the MCHA gave its strongest signal that such a move is off the table, outlining long-term plans to display “Washington Rallying the Troops at Monmouth” in an upcoming exhibition and then again as part of its 250th anniversary commemoration of the American Revolution from 2024-26.
The 1857 work depicts General George Washington astride his horse, with a sword-bearing right arm pointing skyward, amid the tumult of the 1778 Battle of Monmouth at the modern-day boundary of Freehold Township and Manalapan. In May, its famous companion painting, “Washington Crossing the Delaware,” by the same German artist Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze, sold at auction for $45 million.
“Washington Rallying the Troops at Monmouth” has been in the MCHA’s possession since 1937. The MCHA is a nonprofit that oversees the Freehold museum where the painting resides, along with five historic houses throughout Monmouth County.
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“To me it’s always breathtaking,” Bernadette Rogoff, the MCHA’s director of collections, said via phone Monday. “Every time I see the painting, my heart lifts a little bit because it’s so profoundly beautiful.”
Rogoff outlined the following plans to display the oil on canvas work, which is 52 inches tall by 87 inches wide:
"Highlights: 125 Years of the Monmouth County Historical Association" opens May 20 at the museum at 70 Court St. in Freehold, which is reopening to the public after being closed for the past year. The painting will be displayed along with other items of interest, including a chair made in 1695 that Rogoff said is “the oldest documented piece of furniture in New Jersey.”
“On the Edge of War” will open in 2024 and tell the localized backstory of the build-up to the American Revolution.
A subsequent exhibit on the war itself and the Battle of Monmouth in particular will encompass all four of the MCHA’s 18th-century historic homes.
A third and final exhibit in the 250th anniversary series will explore the war’s aftermath and how the new nation was constructed.
“We are all thrilled with the prospect and promise of really digging into the American Revolution and celebrating its 250th anniversary,” Rogoff said, adding that the painting is “going to be a centerpiece of all three exhibitions.”
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She predicts the public will be impressed with the work’s vibrancy.
“For the artist to be able to encapsulate the day-long battle in an area no bigger than a piece of plywood is amazing,” she said. “It glows as bright as the day he finished painting it.”
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Historic wardrobe exhibit
Starting May 6 at the Taylor-Butler House in Middletown, the MCHA will display eight garments plus accessories from the wardrobe of Julia Norton Hartshorne, scion of a prominent Monmouth County family who died in 1869 at age 30.
“She had ordered a whole new wardrobe because fashion had changed so dramatically around that time, and she never got a chance to wear them,” Rogoff said. “She was really a clothes horse. It’s a very unusual slice of one moment in time in somebody’s wardrobe.”
Jerry Carino is community columnist for the Asbury Park Press, focusing on the Jersey Shore’s interesting people, inspiring stories and pressing issues. Contact him at jcarino@gannettnj.com.
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Monmouth history exhibits planned as Battle of Monmouth painting saved
