.png){kind=logo}
Object Record
Images
Metadata
Object name |
Engraving |
Title |
Pulling down the Statue of George III |
Artist or maker |
John C. McRae (active 1850-1880) |
Artist or maker |
Johannes Adam Simon Oertel (1823-1909) |
Date |
1853 |
Place of origin |
New York, New York |
Materials and techniques |
ink on paper |
Physical description |
This engraving depicts a crowd toppling the statue of King George III that was erected in Bowling Green. |
Past exhibit |
Fear and Force: New York City's Sons of Liberty |
Current exhibit |
Path to Liberty: The Emergence of a Nation |
Gallery label |
This image was engraved on the eve of the Civil War, seventy-seven years after the reading of Declaration of Independence at New York City's Commons on July 9, 1776. The result of this momentous reading was that a vandalizing mob of Sons of Liberty and fellow patriots toppled the 4,000-pound gilded equestrian statue of King George III at Bowling Green Park. Path to Liberty: The Emergence of a Nation (2025): In 1770, New York officials erected a statue of King George III to celebrate the King’s repeal of the Stamp Act. The gilded lead equestrian figure stood atop a fifteen-foot-high marble pedestal, the largest sculpture in the colonies. A year later, when relations between King George III and his American subjects deteriorated, the city built a protective wrought iron fence around the monument. This piece of the fence was collected during the 1938 renovations of Bowling Green prior to the World’s Fair the following year. After the Declaration of Independence was read at the Commons (the site of City Hall today) on July 9th, 1776, the Sons of Liberty, led by Isaac Sears, and a crowd of Patriots rampaged through the city’s streets. They traveled down Broadway, breaking windows in the homes of known Loyalists, before arriving face to face with the statue at Bowling Green. They broke through the fence and pulled the statue off its pedestal, mangling the horse and its disgraced rider. Nearly all 4,000 pounds of lead were melted into musket balls and used to fight the British Army. |
Catalogue number |
1915.04.001 |
Collection name |
Drawings and Prints |
Credit line |
Gift of Mrs. Charles P. Wilbour, 1915 |
People |
King George III |
Subjects and places |
American Revolution Bowling Green monuments New York City sculpture |