Surrender of Lord Cornwallis
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| Artist | John Trumbull |
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| Year | 1819–1820 |
| Type | Oil painting |
| Dimensions | 3.7 m × 5.5 m (12 ft × 18 ft) |
| Location | United States Capitol rotunda, Washington, D. C. |
| Owner | United States of America |
The Surrender of Lord Cornwallis is an oil painting by John Trumbull. The painting was completed in 1820, and hangs in the rotunda of the United States Capitol in Washington, D. C.
The painting depicts the surrender of British Major General Charles, Earl Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia on October 19, 1781, ending the Siege of Yorktown, and virtually guaranteeing American independence. Included in the depiction are many leaders of the American troops that took part in the siege.
Artist John Trumbull (1756–1843) spent the early part of the American Revolutionary War as a soldier, serving as an aide to both George Washington and Horatio Gates. After resigning from the army in 1777, he pursued a career as an artist. In 1785 he began sketching out ideas for a series of large-scale paintings to commemorate the major events of the American Revolution. After spending a time in England, he returned to New York City in 1789, where he sketched a number of dignitaries whose portraits he intended to use in these paintings. In 1791 he traveled to Yorktown, Virginia, where he sketched the landscape of the surrender site.
Upon his return from Britain after the end of the War of 1812, he promoted this idea to the United States Congress. On the strength of his application and the successful exhibition of Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker's Hill, Death of Montgomery, as well as studies for other proposed paintings, the Congress in 1817 voted to commission four large paintings from him, to be hung in the United States Capitol rotunda.
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