First exhibited at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia under the name of Yankee Doodle. It was created as a commercial venture to make chromolithographic copies. Thousands of copies were sold at the exhibition and many thousands thereafter. It was probably the most popular chromo produced in the US. The central figure was painted from a photograph of the artist’s father. Willard made a number of copies of the painting, which do not completely resemble each other. To see the original: http://bit.ly/2gCx1QX