Description
Working with Boston’s Franklin Printing Co. and J. B. Bolton, engraver Denison Kimberly published this commemorative text of the Declaration of Independence alongside an image of the historic signing in 1841. Kimberly’s print paired the certified text of the Declaration of Independence and accurate facsimiles of the signatures with an engraving of John Trumbull’s 1818 painting Declaration of Independence, one of four Revolutionary-era scenes commissioned for the U.S. Capitol Rotunda. Trumbull’s original image, reproduced here by Kimberly, depicts an imagined scene from June 28th, 1776, centered around Thomas Jefferson presenting the Declaration of Independence to John Hancock, president of the Second Continental Congress. (1) Based on a smaller painting made by Trumbull in 1786, the Capitol version (and consequently Kimberly’s engraving) prioritized preserving the likeness of as many founders as possible, and includes 47 individuals, some of whom were not actually in attendance, painted from life or life paintings. (2) The painting’s first engraved reproduction circulated decades before Kimberly’s version, when Asher B. Durand, later a notable American landscape painter, published his engraved reproduction in 1823. Durand, under the painter’s supervision, popularized the painting into Trumbull’s most famous work and one of the best-known Revolutionary-era scenes. (3)
Little is known about the life of Denison Kimberly, the engraver of the Dumbarton Oaks Declaration print. Born 1814 in Guilford, Connecticut, Kimberly is recorded to have studied under engraver Asaph Willard in Hartford and with the Boston publisher Samuel Walker. (4) He produced other patriotic reproductions of paintings, including engravings of the first ten presidents from life portraits (1842), Albert Gallatin Hoit’s portrait of William Henry Harrison (1841), and historic sites in Massachusetts. Although later publications report his death in Connecticut in 1863 shortly after opening painting studios there, census records record Kimberly as a resident of Braintree, Massachusetts in 1880. (5)
According to the written inscription, this copy of Kimberly’s Declaration was gifted by Alyo B. Gonzalez Garcia to Robert Woods Bliss on April 23rd, 1933. During his extensive diplomatic foreign service career, Bliss served as U.S. ambassador to Argentina from 1927 to 1933, and most likely received this gift during service abroad.
- Hannah Chew, Humanities Fellow, 2023-24
NOTES:
(1) Architect of the Capitol, “The Art Collection: Declaration of Independence.”
(2) Architect; Cooper, Helen A., Patricia Mullan Burnham, John Trumbull, and Yale University. Art Gallery host institution, John Trumbull: the Hand and Spirit of a Painter. 1982, New Haven: Yale University Art Gallery : Distributed by Yale University Press.
(3) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, “The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776; Asher B. Durand.” (webpage)
(4) Grolier Club, The United States navy, 1776 to 1815, depicted in an exhibition of prints of American naval engagements and American naval commanders held at the Grolier club November 19, 1942, to January 17, 1943; George C. Groce, The New-York Historical Society's dictionary of artists in America, 1564-1860. 1957, New Haven: Yale University Press.
(5) Massachusetts. Census Record Indexes 1880
Acquisition History
Gift of Alyo B. Gonzalez Garcia, Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Robert Woods Bliss, April 23, 1933;
Collection of Mildred Barnes and Robert Woods Bliss, Washington, D.C., 1933 to 1969;
Bequest of Mildred Barnes Bliss (1879-1969), January 17, 1969;
Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, House Collection, Washington, D.C.
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