Washington's Tent

choi

Jennifer Schuessler, Washington's Tent: A Detective Story; How a Philadelphia museum found the only known wartime depiction of his traveling headquarters. New York Times, Nov 15, 2017 (in the Arts section).
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/ ... etective-story.html
six months after that 'Where's Waldo?' moment, the museum is announcing that it has acquired what it believes is the only known wartime depiction of Washington's tent by an eyewitness.
Note:
(a) This is an exhibition review:

Among His Troops: Washington's War Tent in a Newly Discovered Watercolor. Museum of the American Revolution, Jan 13- Feb 19, 2018 (in the "Special Exhibitions" section).
https://www.amrevmuseum.org/exhibits-events/among-his-troops

(b) "Late one night last spring, Philip Mead, the chief historian at the new Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia, was browsing auction listings online * * * The museum had opened a month earlier * * * its star relic: the canvas marquee tent that George Washington used as his headquarters for most of the war
six months after that 'Where's Waldo?' moment, the museum is announcing that it has acquired what it believes is the only known wartime depiction [painted in 1782] of Washington's tent by an eyewitness. * * * the eyewitness [ie, painter] was Pierre Charles L'Enfant, the French-born military engineer and future planner of Washington, DC, who had rendered the scene with meticulous accuracy"
(i) Where's Wally?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where%27s_Wally%3F
(published in the US as Where's Waldo?; Published 1987–present; Wally's distinctive red-and-white-striped shirt, bobble hat, and glasses make him slightly easier to recognise)
(A) Wally may also be the nickname for Wallace.
(B) Given Name WALDO
https://www.behindthename.com/name/waldo
("Originally a short form of Germanic names containing the element wald meaning "rule". In the Middle Ages this name became the basis for a surname. Its present use in the English-speaking world is usually in honour of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), an American poet and author who wrote on transcendentalism. He was (probably) named after the 12th-century Christian radical Peter Waldo, who was from Lyons in France. Though Waldo and his followers, called the Waldensians, were declared heretics at the time, they were later admired by Protestants")
(ii) Search Wikipedia with (bubble hat) -- a term that does not appear in www.merriam-webster.com -- will lead one to knit cap
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knit_cap
(section 2.4 British bobble hat)
(iii) bobble (n): "a small ball made of strands of wool used as a decoration on a hat or on furnishings  <a woollen ski hat with a bobble on top>"
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/bobble
(iv) French-English dictionary:
* enfant (noun masculine or noun feminine; probably borrowed from Latin [noun masculine or noun feminine] īnfāns [infant]): "child"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/enfant
(v) Washington, DC
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington,_D.C.
(section 1 History, section 1.1 Foundation)

Washington Post: "since the city's inception in 1791"

(c) "the detective work that went into identifying the watercolor, which will be the centerpiece of an exhibition opening on Jan 13.  The watercolor, which was listed by Heritage Auctions [1976- ; headquarters Dallas, Texas], measures about seven feet long and 14 inches high. It was painted on six sheets of paper * * * No artist was listed. * * * Library of Congress owned a similar panorama by L'Enfant, showing the Continental Army encamped near West Point, [New York,] in August 1782. * * * The auction listing identified the watercolor as coming from the papers of Thomas Digges, who was related to a prominent Maryland family that had housed L'Enfant at the end of his life. The watercolor at the Library of Congress had been acquired in 1920 from that same family. (Later, the museum's researchers determined that a brief inscription on the back of the new watercolor matched L'Enfant's handwriting.)  The museum paid $13,750 for the watercolor, including the buyer's premium."
(i) Panoramic view of West Point, New York showing American encampments on the Hudson River. Library of Congress, undated
https://www.loc.gov/item/2004678934/
(watercolor; Call Number: "DRWG 1 - L'Enfant, no 1 (F size)" )

Take notice this painting is about West point, a different location from the one at the issue (in the NYreport).
(ii) Pierre Charles L'Enfant. Arlington National Cemetery, undated
www.arlingtoncemetery.mil/Explor ... rre-Charles-LEnfant
("was [first] interred on the Digges Farm, also known as Green Hill, Prince Georges County, Md" and moved to Arlington cemetery in 1909)
(iii) buyer's premium
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buyer%27s_premium
(in addition to or instead of seller's commission)

That is, an auction house takes from both buyer and seller in a successful bidding.

(d) "The auction listing described the watercolor as dating from the Battle of Stony Point in July 1779. But the museum determined that it actually depicts the Continental Army's encampment at Verplanck's Point, just across the Hudson, in the fall of 1782. * * * There was a possibility of renewed attacks from the British, who were still in New York City, about 60 miles downriver. [Treaty of Paris would be signed in 1783.] Washington had set up camp there to greet the French troops commanded by Rochambeau, which were passing through to set sail from Boston. * * * The scene had been partially captured by the painter John Trumbull, who did a portrait of Washington and his horse at Verplanck's that he later presented to [wife] Martha Washington.  The oval-shaped tent itself is not visible in Trumbull's painting. 'But now, because of this new watercolor and the research we've done, we can tell it shows Washington standing right in front of the tent’ "
(i) Battle of Stony Point
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stony_Point
(July 16, 1779; in Stony Point [now a torn], New York)
(ii) Washington at Verplanck's Point
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_at_Verplanck%27s_Point
(oil painting done in 1790; at Verplanck's Point [qv]; The painting was a gift from Trumbull to the president's wife, Martha Washington, and is now owned by the Winterthur Museum)

* If you click "Verplanck's Point," you will appreciate the NYT sentence: "it actually depicts the Continental Army's encampment at Verplanck's Point, just across the Hudson."

Verplanck's Point is east of, and Stony Point is west of, Hudson River.
(iii) photo caption: "This John Trumbull portrait of George Washington shows him at Verplanck's Point with the Continental Army encampment in the background. The curators now realize Washington is facing his tent. Credit Winterthur Museum, Gift of Henry Francis du Pont."

So, (d) says “in front of” does not mean Washington's tent is in the background of this painting. Rather, the tent is to the left of the painting. The curators realized from the map discussed in (f).

(e) About the tent.
(i)
(A) George Washington's tent
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington%27s_tent
("a pair of campaign tents (marquees)" )

He used two at the same time, according to this Wiki page.
(B) Clicking "campaign tents" leads to

pole marquee
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pole_marquee

, whose bottom shows a general illustration of this kind of tent. But Washington's is round.
(C) marquee (n; etymology): "chiefly British : a large tent set up for an outdoor party, reception, or exhibition"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/marquee
(ii)
(A) Washington’s Headquarters Tent. Museum of American Revolution, undated
https://www.amrevmuseum.org/coll ... n-headquarters-tent
("In 1909, Reverend W Herbert Burk purchased this national treasure from Miss Mary Custis Lee, daughter of Confederate General Robert E Lee, for the Valley Forge Museum of American History")

* Robert E Lee
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Lee
(section 3 Marriage and family)
(B) The First Oval Office: Reconstructing George Washington's Marquee Tent. Two Nerdy History Girls, Nov 17, 2013.
http://twonerdyhistorygirls.blog ... reconstructing.html
(C) James Nye, Washington's Tent Among Stunning Artifacts in First Ever Museum Dedicated to American Revolution. Daily Mail, July 31, 2012
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... can-Revolution.html

(f) "The encampment's layout and details, down to the number of tents, were also recorded in a map, now owned by Harvard University['s Houghton Library], which came from the papers of Washington's headquarters. The details on that map precisely match those in the watercolor. * * * Written accounts of the encampment describe the bowers that each regiment erected in front of their tents to provide shade and protection, with symbols indicating the regiments' origins.  Most are hard to make out, but the curators identified a tiny anchor in one bower — the symbol of a regiment from Rhode Island known for its large number of African-American and Native American soldiers."
(i) The NYT report, both in print and online, has the map, whose middle tent (in a long line of tents) can be discerned with the letters "RI."
(ii) 1st Rhode Island Regiment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_Rhode_Island_Regiment  
(table: Active 1775–1783 + war flag; It was one of the few units in the Continental Army to serve through the entire war)

section 1.4 Rhode Island Regiment (1781–1783): "On Jan 1, 1781, the regiment was consolidated with the 2nd Rhode Island Regiment [qv; whose war flag included an anchor] and Sherburne's Additional Continental Regiment and was re-designated as the Rhode Island Regiment
(iii) Flag of Rhode Island
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Rhode_Island
(section 1 History: explaining anchor)

Anchor might also be related to that state's maritime tradition.