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Historians criticize the painting because they feel that it should represent either the scene on June 28th when the Declaration was reported, or on July 4th when it was adopted, and they point out that Trumbull has included portraits of men who were not present on one or both of these occasions and excluded others who were. That assumes, however, that Trumbull meant to memorialize one or both of these events. He did not. He neither called his work "The Submission of the Declaration", nor "Congress Adopting the Declaration" nor "The Signing of the Declaration." It is "Declaration of Independence" and was meant by Trumbull "to preserve the resemblance of the men who were the authors of this memorable act." I was just in Philadelphia and stood in this very room. It has been preserved as it originally was in 1776 and actually looks like THIS |