The portrait setting includes important historical details. Peale painted the sword faithfully, as a careful comparison with the original (also on exhibit in the Senate Committee Room of the Maryland State House) demonstrates. In addition, Tilghman is portrayed wearing his ceremonial officer's sword. Appropriately, Peale painted Tilghman with the 1781 Yorktown Articles of Capitulation in his left hand.
To reward Tilghman's service, Washington sent him to deliver formally the news of Cornwallis' surrender to the Continental Congress, which then was meeting at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Washington called Tilghman a "zealous Servant and slave to the public, and a faithful assistant to me for near five years." ( Papers of George Washington, Letter to Sullivan, May 11, 1781). Tilghman served without pay until May 1781 when Washington was able to arrange for him a regular commission in the Continental Army. In 1776, he volunteered his services to George Washington and became his military secretary and aide-de-camp. Born in Talbot County, Tilghman studied in Philadelphia and began a career there as a businessman. Tilghman's inclusion in the scene was appropriate for a painting that was intended to hang in Maryland. Tilghman's portrait was painted from life. The second figure Peale added is Lieutenant Colonel Tench Tilghman (1744-1786), a Marylander who served as Washington's military secretary and aide-de-camp, who is shown in profile. Peale initially relied on a bust of Lafayette to produce the latter's painted image, although Lafayette saw the painting as it was nearly finished, and offered to sit for Peale so the artist could tweak his likeness. The first, to Washington's immediate left, is the Marquis de Lafayette, who represents the pivotal alliance between colonial America and France that led to victory in the Revolution. In addition to painting Washington, whose likeness Peale based on a 1783 sitting that took place in Philadelphia, Peale added two figures to the foreground of his composition. In the end, Peale produced a large-scale painting that exceeded the delegates' request. It took the artist about three years to complete the portrait, as he wished to make it "something better than a mere Coppy " (Letter from Charles Willson Peale to Samuel Chase, Novemreprinted in The Selected Papers of Charles Willson Peale and His Family, vol. Peale, at that time residing in Philadelphia, accepted the commission, anticipating it would increase his artistic stature and likely lead to further public commissions.
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Lee wrote to Peale in December 1781: "The Honorable Delegates of Maryland have Unanimously resolved to have the Portrait of His Excellency General Washington, at full length, to be placed in their House, in grateful remembrance of that most Illustrious Character." (Letter from Governor Thomas Sim Lee to Charles Willson Peale, Decemreprinted in The Selected Papers of Charles Willson Peale and His Family, vol. In enthusiastic response, the Maryland House of Delegates asked Governor Thomas Sim Lee to commission Maryland-born Charles Willson Peale to paint a portrait of colonial America's hero, General Washington. In October 1781, British General Charles Cornwallis surrendered to General George Washington (1732-1799) at Yorktown, VA, effectively ending the Revolutionary War. Title: Washington, Lafayette, & Tilghman at Yorktown Artist: Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827)