John Quidor, (artist), American, 1801 - 1881, The Return of Rip Van Winkle, 1849, oil on canvas, overall: 101 x 126.5 cm (39 3/4 x 49 13/16 in.), framed: 139.1 x 159.4 x 9.5 cm (54 3/4 x 62 3/4 x 3 3/4 in.), Washington Irving's Sketch Book, published serially in London and New York journals in 1820, captivated readers worldwide. Quidor's Return of Rip Van Winkle accurately sets the scene in the Catskills and shows brick houses with step-gabled, Dutch roofs. The mountains and buildings are the only familiar elements to poor Rip, who'd been drugged by Henry Hudson's enchanted crew twenty years earlier. Having slept through the Revolutionary War, Rip finds a flag bearing "a singular assemblage of stars and stripes," while the face of King George on the tavern's sign has been repainted to that of an unknown George named Washington..