Peale, James
Peale, Charles Willson
Early Life
Portraiture
Later Life and Work
In 1779 Peale was elected to the Pennsylvania legislature and was politically active for several years. In 1784 he established what was known as “Peale's Museum,” which was moved to Independence Hall in 1802. Besides a series of portraits of eminent Americans by Peale and his son Rembrandt, it contained a number of Native American relics, waxworks dummies, and specimens of natural history. He invented his own system of taxidermy and was a century ahead of his time in his concept of placing each animal in a simulated natural environment.
In 1801 he formed the first scientific expedition in American history. From a New York state farm he exhumed the skeleton of a mastodon, assembling and restoring the remains for his museum. Two major paintings of his later years underscore his scientific interests, Exhuming the Mastodon (1806–8; Peale Museum, Baltimore) and The Artist in His Studio (1822; Penna. Acad. of the Fine Arts). He was also instrumental in founding (1805) the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and taught there for a number of years. Evidence of his versatility are his numerous inventions: a velocipede, new types of eyeglasses, false teeth, and the polygraph. On the polygraph he collaborated with Thomas Jefferson.
The Peale Family
Charles Willson Peale's brother James Peale, 1749–1831, b. Chestertown, Md., painted portraits, particularly miniatures. There is a portrait of Washington by him in the New-York Historical Society. Another hangs in Independence Hall. Of Charles Willson Peale's 17 children, four aptly named sons became painters— Titian Ramsay Peale, 1799–1885, museum director, naturalist on U.S. scientific expeditions, and painter noted for his depictions of birds, mammals, and butterflies, b. Philadelphia; Rubens Peale, 1784–1865, museum director who became a still-life and landscape painter later in life, b. Bucks co., Pa.; Raphaelle Peale, 1774–1825, still-life and portrait painter, b. Annapolis, Md., known chiefly for After the Bath (Nelson Gall.-Atkins Mus., Kansas City, Mo.); and Rembrandt Peale, 1778–1860, portrait and historical painter, b. Bucks County, Pa.
Rembrandt Peale practiced for several years in Charleston, S.C., became a pupil of Benjamin West in London, and visited Paris, where he painted many eminent Frenchmen. In 1810 he settled in Philadelphia, devoting himself chiefly to portraiture. He was one of the original members of the National Academy of Design and succeeded (1825) John Trumbull as president of the American Academy of Fine Arts. A clever lithographer, he also lectured on natural history and wrote several books. Examples of his portraits of Washington and other famous personages may be seen at the New-York Historical Society; Independence Hall, Philadelphia; the Metropolitan Museum; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. His large allegory The Court of Death is in the Detroit Institute of Art.
Bibliography
See biography of Charles Willson Peale by C. C. Sellers (1969). See also studies by C. C. Sellers (2 vol., 1947) and (1952); C. H. Elam, ed., The Peale Family (1967).