Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze (May 24, 1816 – July 18, 1868) was a German-born American painter.
Leutze was born in Schwäbisch Gmünd, Württemberg, Germany but was brought to America as a child. He was notable for his famous historical painting Washington Crossing the Delaware. It is owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York.
At the age of twenty-five he had earned enough to take himself to Düsseldorf for a course of art study at the Royal Academy . Almost immediately he began painting historical subjects, his first work, Columbus before the Council of Salamanca was purchased by the Düsseldorf Art Union .
In 1860 he was commissioned by the U.S. Congress to decorate a stairway in the Capitol Building in Washington, DC, for which he painted a large composition, Westward the Course of Empire takes its Way .
Late in life, he became a member of the National Academy of Design.
He died in Washington, D.C. in his 53rd year.
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