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Prayer at Valley Forge |
The Prayer at Valley Forge. No doubt you have seen this image before. It has become one of the more notable works of art in America. But few people know that the artist, Arnold Friberg, has made this image available so that every household in America can display it. When Mr. Friberg completed his original painting of The Prayer at Valley Forge in 1975, he allowed only 1,500 signed and numbered copies to be sold -that's it! However, in recent years - due primarily to public supplication - he has consented to allow a special, deluxe edition of The Prayer at Valley Forge to be lithographed so that many more people could appreciate the spiritual and patriotic message his print portrays. Deluxe editions have sold for as much as $349, but we have worked directly with the Friberg Gallery to bring you this special offer . . . Now you can purchase the special, deluxe edition of The Prayer at Valley Forge for only $325! But let me tell you more about this magnificent work of art, Mr. Arnold Friberg - the artist, and how you can acquire your own lithograph . . . With the rise of secularism, it has become fashionable to dismiss Washington’s prayer at Valley Forge – once almost universally accepted as fact – as sentimental legend. Yet the story is well-grounded in the historical record. Our chief source is the eyewitness testimony of Issac Potts, a Valley Forge resident who was 26 years old at the time of the encampment. Like most other Quakers, he was opposed to the war, but remained at Valley Forge during its occupation by the American forces, supervising the grinding of the grain which Washington ordered neighboring farmers to bring to his army. The fullest account of Potts’ testimony is in the “Diary and Remembrances” of the Rev. Nathaniel Randolph Snowden (1770-1851), an ordained Presbyterian minister and a graduate of Princeton. The Rev. Snowden recounts this encounter with Potts, by then a prominent citizen: I was riding with him (Mr. Potts) in Montgomery County, Penn’a near to the Valley Forge, where the army lay during the war of ye Revolution. Mr. Potts was a Senator in our State & a Whig. I told him I was agreeably surprised to find him a friend to his country as the Quakers were mostly Tories. He said, “It was so and I was a rank Tory once, for I never believed that America c’d proceed against Great Britain whose fleets and armies covered the land and ocean, but something very extraordinary converted me to the Good Faith!” “What was that,” I inquired? “Do you see that woods, & that plain?” It was about a quarter of a mile off from the place we were riding, as it happened. “There,” said he, “laid the army of Washington. It was a most distressing time of ye war, and all were for giving up the Ship but that great and good man. In that woods pointing to a close in view, I heard a plaintive sound as, of a man at prayer. I tied my horse to a sapling & went quietly into the woods & to my astonishment I saw the great George Washington on his knees alone, with his sword on one side and his cocked hat on the other. He was at Prayer to the God of the Armies, beseeching to interpose with his Divine aid, as it was ye Crisis, & the cause of the country, of humanity & of the world. Such a prayer I never heard from the lips of man. I left him alone praying. I went home & told my wife. I saw a sight and heard today what I never saw or heard before, and just related to her what I had seen & heard & observed. We never thought a man c’d be a soldier & a Christian, but if there is one in the world, it is Washington. She also was astonished. We thought it was the cause of God, & America could prevail. Potts was not the only man who claimed to see Washington praying at Valley Forge. A quite different account was recorded in an article in The Aldine Press, and was based on the author’s conversations with Revolutionary War veterans. In this account, Washington was seen kneeling at silent prayer in a barn where his horse was kept. Some have construed the differences between this and the Potts account as evidence that both were legendary. The more probable explanation is that each records a separate instance – in other words, that Washington, like any prayerful man facing a crisis, prayed more than once.
Creation of a Masterpiece The Artist Speaks About His Most Celebrated Work Since I was a boy, I have revered George Washington. At age 12, I drew what I thought a fine picture of him astride his white horse. Along with learning the American legend of his praying at Valley Forge, this deep inspiration of boyhood was never to leave me. And so it was that I waited many years to picture him again, in prayer now, in the snow, dismounted from his strong horse – only this time in the full power and richness of oil colors. To prepare for this painting, to ensure accuracy in trees and landscape, I made a pilgrimage to Valley Forge, in the dead of winter. In the summer the place is filled with visitors. But now, in the snows of February, it was deserted, the wind moaning through the great trees – silent, lonely, cold. It was a cold that chilled to the bone, a cold that froze my fingers until I could no longer sketch nor even snap my camera. To ensure accuracy in man-made things, I sought out whatever museums, collections, libraries, or informed individuals could offer on horse gear or uniform. At the Smithsonian Military History Museum, I made minutely accurate sketches from the very uniform worn by Washington. As for facial likeness, I studied every portrait ever sketched, carved or painted from life. But always keeping in mind how cold and raw-boned he must have looked during that winter encampment. But such research, vital as it is, provides only physical facts. What I really tried for was, through the medium of paint, to recall the pain, the cold of that cruel winter of 1777-78. I sought to pay tribute to the tall and heavy-burdened man who alone held our struggling nation together. For, while the British grew fat and warm and well fed in Philadelphia, it was the man Washington who stayed with his starving and freezing army through that dreadful winter at Valley Forge. It was in desperation that he wrote to the governor of New Jersey, “Our sick naked, our well naked, our unfortunate men in captivity naked!” With his own countrymen indifferent to their condition, where else could he turn but to God? It is my hope that coming through this picture will once again
whisper the spirit of Valley Forge, of suffering and devotion and
pain, of liberty, and of the hand of God in the affairs of men.
Arnold Friberg, R.S.A. An American Master of International Renown Through a career spanning six decades, Arizona native Arnold Friberg has been widely recognized as one of the great master painters of modern times, with a unique gift for rendering religious and historical themes with startling realism and stirring drama. In 1953, Mr. Friberg’s monumental series of spiritual paintings were discovered by the famous film director Cecil B. DeMille, who promptly hired the artist to assist in the design of his Biblical epic, “The Ten Commandments.” Friberg’s work won him an Academy Award nomination, and his monumental series of 15 inspirational paintings for the film toured every continent.
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