TRUMBULL, Jour:, American painter, son of gov. Jonathan Trumbull (said to have been the original " Brother Jonathan,") of Connecticut, and brother of gen. Jonathan Trumbull, aide-de-camp to gen. Washington, was b. in Lebanon, Conn., Juue 6, 1756, was educated at Harvard college, and devoted himself to painting. Ile had completed two pictures, the " Battle of Canine," and the "Judgment of Brutus," at 19, when the war of the revolution broke out, and he joined the provincial army before Boston as adjutant of the 1st Connecticut regiment. The execution of drawings of the British works procured his appointment as aid to Washington, and soon after that of brigade major. In 1776-77 be served under Gates and Arnold as adjt.gen.; but, offended with the action of congress respecting the date of his commission, he resigned and resumed the palette. In 1780 he came to London, via France, where he was making rapid prog ress under the instructions of sir Benjamin West, when, during the excitement occa sioned by the execution of maj. Andre, he was thrown into prison. The king, George III., promised West that his life should be spared, but he was kept eight months in prison, and then released on condition of leaving the kingdom. After the war he returned and resumed his studies. His " Priam receiving the Body of Hector," painted at this period, is iu the gallery of the Boston Athenaeum. In 1786 he produced the first
of a series of modern historical and military works, the "Battle of Bunker Hill," fol. lowed by the " Death of Montgomery," " Sortie of the Garrison front Gibraltar." exhibited iu London in 1789, and engraved by Sharp. He, this year, returned to America, painted several portraits of Washington, and secured likenesses of many of the prominent actors in the revolution; and in 1796 retuned to England as secretary of legation to Mr. Jay. He was in England again from 1808 to 1815, industriously, but with little success. Returning then to America he was employed by congress to paint four large national pictures for the rotunda of the capitol at Washington—the " Declaration of Independence," " Surrender of Burgoyne," the " Surrender of Corn wallis," and the " Resignation of General Washington, at Annapolis, Dec. 23, 1783." These pictures are chiefly valuable as collections of portraits. He afterward completed a gallery of all his historical pictures, 57 in number, on a smaller scale, which became the property of Yale college, and has great historical value. He was the president of the American academy of rine arts from its foundation in 1816, until the formation of the national academy in 1825; and died in New York, Nov. 10, 1848.