Curator Corner: Congress Voting Independence

During your lunch break, go behind-the-scenes of the museum with this free virtual talk by Morven Museum & Garden’s Curator & Registrar Jesse Gordon Simons, discussing the painting Congress Voting Independence. 

Currently on display in Morven’s exhibition Five Independent Souls: The Signers from New Jersey, this painting by Robert Edge Pine is the first known American depiction of the vote for Independence, predating the more famous version by John Trumbull on display in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda by more than thirty years. Congress Voting Independence is considered the most accurate known portrayal of the Assembly Room of Independence Hall, where the vote for independence was taken and where the Declaration was signed. Gordon Simons will discuss the painting’s history, competing narratives, and stories it represents.

Free! Link provided with registration.

Congress Voting Independence, 1796–1817. Probably Edward Savage (1761–1817) after Robert Edge Pine (1730–1788). Oil on canvas. Purchase, Historical Society of Pennsylvania / Atwater Kent Collection, Drexel University.