The Burial of Latané

Though his childhood was limited by a congenital deformity that left him with a pronounced limp, William Dickinson Washington went on to create one of the most widely known paintings in the canon of Southern art. Washington's art education took place mainly in DC, with a short stint at the Düsseldorf Academy in the 1850s. When he returned to DC in 1856, he became deeply involved in the local art scene. He remained there until 1861, painting portraits and historical works.

Washington’s most famous painting, The Burial of Latané, depicts an overtly symbolic funerary service for Confederate Captain William Samuel Latané, who died in June 1862 during an encounter with Union soldiers. The story told in John Reuben Thompson’s poem “The Burial of Latané,” which was published in the Southern Literary Messenger, inspired this painting and the thousands of etchings that would later be reproduced and hung on the walls of Southern homes. Washington’s composition recalls popular old master prints of the lamentation for Christ and was meant to align the death of Latané with martyrdom and the defeat of the Confederacy. In recent decades, this composition has been criticized for depicting women and enslaved Black attendants as primarily loyal, pious mourners and is considered to have been a key player in extending the reach and longevity of the Lost Cause myth.