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President Roosevelt instructs Secretary of War Root and American authorities in Cuba to assist Vasilii Vereshchagin, a Russian painter, on his trip to Cuba. Vereshchagin wants to paint a picture of the San Juan charge of the Rough Riders. Roosevelt wants Vereshchagin to see the lay of the battlefield so that the painting will have historic value.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1902-02-22
Secretary of the Treasury Cortelyou details why Théobald Chartran’s painting depicting the signing of the “Protocols of Peace” between the United States and Spain in August, 1898, is not historically accurate. He does not want a 1902 letter from the French ambassador at the time, Jules Cambon, to be attached to the painting’s provenance. Cortelyou shares the letter and compares Cambon’s list of attendees with his own meticulous secretarial notes from the event. Neither the photograph Frances Benjamin Johnston took the day after the actual signing nor Chartran’s painting provide a completely accurate representation of the attendees and setting.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1909-02-05