Portrait of Major General John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg

19th century

AN OIL ON CANVAS PORTRAIT DEPICTING MAJOR GENERAL JOHN PETER GABRIEL MUHLENBERG (1746-1807) (American, 19th century). The painting is a copy of an earlier ancestral portrait painting of the sitter and is in neoclassical style giltwood frame. Muhlenberg, a clergyman in the Lutheran and later Anglican churches, was also a soldier and a politician of the Colonial, Revolutionary and Federal eras in Pennsylvania and the son of Anna Weiser and Henry Melchior Muhlenberg. On January 21, 1776 in the Anglican church in Woodstock, Virginia, Rev. J.P.G. Muhlenberg based his sermon on the third chapter Ecclesiastes, starting with: "To every thing there is a season ...", after reading the eighth verse "a time of war, and a time of peace", he declared: "and this is the time of war" and removed his clerical robe to reveal his Colonel's uniform. The next day he led 300 men to form the nucleus of the Eighth Virginia Militia. The piece is unsigned.

American

Oil on canvas

Image size: 30" x 25"

Framed: 38" x 33"

Bequest of Mrs. Alletta Morris McBean.

PSNC.8612