Alongside Donald Trump’s face, you can expect to soon see a piece of American art history on your US passport.
As reported yesterday by Fox News, Trump’s State Department has revealed a limited-edition passport for the nation’s 250th anniversary that will feature John Trumbull’s 1817 painting Declaration of Independence.
Contrary to popular belief, the 18-foot-long painting does not depict the signing of its titular document but merely the presentation of a draft of it Congress in 1776. (Fox News, which had the exclusive on the new passport design, itself erroneously reported that the painting represents the signing of the Declaration of the Independence.) Some 42 of the Declaration of Independence’s signatories are present, though Trumbull, one of the most celebrated American painters of his day, had initially intended to feature the remaining 14.
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The painting is held in the US Capitol Rotunda, though a smaller version of it can also be found in the American art galleries of the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut. An engraving by Asher B. Durand based on Trumbull’s composition helped the painting gain nationwide fame, as did the painting’s appearance on the now defunct $2 bill.
The Trumbull painting is shown in the passport opposite Trump’s portrait, which floats atop the Declaration of Independence. On the passport’s back, there’s an American flag with a “250” inset where the stars typically appear.
“As the United States celebrates America’s 250th anniversary in July, the State Department is preparing to release a limited number of specially designed U.S. passports to commemorate this historic occasion,” a State Department spokesperson told Fox News.
The department said that the passports would be available to “any American citizen,” and that they would remain that way until the limited-edition run was sold out.