George Washington’s drawing of the cherished Bastille goes to auction

One of George Washington’s most prized possessions was an ink wash drawing of the Bastillethe Paris prison that was stormed by French revolutionaries in 1789. He mounted it in the entryway of his Mount Vernon home, right next to the spindly key to the medieval fort. Both items were gifts from the Marquis de Lafayettethe Frenchman who had helped the colonists to victory during the American Revolution.

Now, that drawing– titled The destruction of the Bastille– goes to the auction block. Freemans | Hindman will sell the artwork in Philadelphia next month and is expected to fetch between $500,000 and $800,000, according to a statement from the auction house. The play is now touring Paris, New York, Chicago and Philadelphia Museum of the American Revolution.

James Taub, associate curator of exhibition content and research at the Philadelphia museum, is pleased to display the drawing ahead of the upcoming 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding.

“It’s another great opportunity to show the long-lasting impact of not only the American Revolution, but revolutionary movements around the world,” he says. Philadelphia researcher‘s Rosa Cartagena.

Located on the east side of Paris, the Bastille was a towering medieval fortress that once housed prisoners and continued to function as “a symbol of arbitrary royal power” in the eyes of the French working class, as Jeremy D. Popkin of Humanities magazine wrote in 2021. On July 14, 1789, hundreds of French revolutionaries attacked and took over the Bastille. French Revolution.

The destruction of the Bastille was drawn by Étienne-Louis-Denis Cathala, an architect who oversaw the demolition of the Bastille after the events of July 1789. At the time, Lafayette was responsible for maintaining order in Paris as Commander-in-Chief of the Paris National Guard. He sent the drawing across the Atlantic to his own former commander: George Washington, who had become American first chairman not long ago.

“Washington treated Lafayette like a son; Lafayette was 19 when they met,” Darren Winstonco-curator of books and manuscripts at the auction house, says Pentaby Lauren Pauw. “Lafayette regarded him as a father figure and they agreed politically as well as in every other way.”

Lafayette explained the gift in a covering letter:

Allow me, my dear General, to present to you a photograph of the Bastille, exactly as it looked a few days after I ordered its demolition, with the most important details: [key] of that fortress of despotism – it is a tribute which I owe as a son to my adoptive father, as a support to my general, as a missionary of freedom to his patriarch.

Washington cherished the drawing and the key, calling them symbols of “liberty’s victory over despotism.” He kept them for the rest of his life and displayed them in his home as a memento of “his relationship with Lafayette, his commitment to justice and freedom and its meaning to America,” the auction house said.

If WHY‘, writes Peter Crimmins, the drawing is ‘not particularly catchy’. It is a yellowed, faded sketch of the Bastille being peacefully dismantled as onlookers watch from the foreground.

“Without a story, I see it in an antique store for $250,” Winston tells WHYY. “It’s definitely the vessel through which the story comes. It’s all about the story.”