The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Rothermel, Peter Frederick

ROTHERMEL, rŏth'ėr-mĕl, Peter Frederick, American painter: b. Luzerne County, Pa., 18 July 1817; d. near Pottstown, Pa., 15 Aug. 1895. He was educated as a land surveyor, but at 22 studied painting, and about 1840 opened a studio as a portrait painter at Philadelphia, and eventually turned his attention to historical subjects. Among his earlier works are &lsquo;Christabel&rsquo; and &lsquo;Katherine and Petruchio.&rsquo; He has also painted many American subjects, among them &lsquo;De Soto Discovering the Mississippi,&rsquo; &lsquo;Columbus Before Isabella the Catholic,&rsquo; the &lsquo;Noche Triste&rsquo; from Prescott's &lsquo;Conquest of Mexico&rsquo;; &lsquo;Patrick Henry Before the Virginia House of Burgesses&rsquo;; and &lsquo;The Battle of Gettysburg.&rsquo; His pictures reveal a fine sense of color and a power of dramatic composition which are not common; but he has a tendency to exaggeration and his overtrained action is very often less genuinely effective than sensational.