‘Washington Crossing the Delaware’ painting that hung in White House up for auction

NEW YORK — A painting depicting George Washington’s famous crossing of the Delaware River during the Revolutionary War will be auctioned next month and could fetch as much as $20 million.

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The “Washington Crossing the Delaware” painting, which hung in the White House from the 1970s until 2014, is part of a Christie’s 20th Century Evening Sale on May 12 in New York, the auction house announced.

It is the only example of Emanuel Leutze’s 1851 painting in private hands, Barron’s reported. The oil painting on canvas measures 40 inches by 68 inches, according to the auction listing.

This painting, one of three examples depicting Washington’s attack on the Hessian army at Trenton, New Jersey, on Dec. 25, 1776, is returning to auction for the first time since 1973, according to Barron’s. It sold for $260,000 at the time, which at the time was a record for a U.S. painting.

The first version was destroyed during a World War II air raid in Germany, Paige Kestenman, an American art specialist at Christie’s, told Reuters.

“The second is the monumental work that is the centerpiece of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s American Wing, and the third is this work right here,” Kestenman told the news service.

According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s website, Leutze began his first version of the painting in 1849 but it was destroyed by a fire in his studio the following year. It was restored but was destroyed during the bombing raid in 1943. The version that hangs in the museum was begun in 1850 and was bought by Marshall O. Roberts for $10,000. the museum said.

The version headed for auction hung in the White House and appeared several times in the reception room to the West Wing, Barron’s reported. It was on loan from an anonymous collector until it was sold privately to Mary Burrichter and her husband, Bob Kierlin, founders of the Minnesota Marine Art Museum, according to the website.

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