Charles Willson Peale
|
Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827), self-portrait from 1822 |
Charles Willson Peale (
April 15,
1741 â€"
February 22,
1827) was an
American painter, soldier and naturalist.
Peale was born in
Chester,
Queen Anne's County, Maryland the son of Charles Peale and his wife Margaret. In
1749 his brother
James Peale (1749-1831) was born. Charles became an apprentice to a
saddle maker when he was thirteen years old. Upon reaching maturity, he opened his own saddle shop; however, when his
Loyalist creditors discovered he had joined the
Sons of Liberty organization, they conspired to
bankrupt his business.
Finding that he had a talent for painting, especially portraiture, Peale studied for a time under
John Hesselius and
John Singleton Copley; eventually friends raised enough money for him to travel to
England to take instruction from
Benjamin West. Peale studied with West for two years beginning in
1767, afterward returning to America and settling in
Annapolis, Maryland. There he taught painting to his younger brother,
James Peale, who in time also became a noted artist.
In
1762 he married
Rachel Brewer (1744-1790). They had ten children. Among the sons:
Raphaelle Peale (1774-1825),
Rembrandt Peale (1778-1860),
Rubens Peale (1784-1865),
Titian Peale (d. 1789) died of yellow fever. Among the daughters:
Angelica Kauffman Peale married
Alexander Robinson, and
Priscilla Peale married Dr.
Henry Boteler.
Peale's enthusiasm for the nascent national government brought him to the capital,
Philadelphia, in 1776 where he painted portraits of American notables and visitors from overseas. His estate, which is on the campus of
La Salle University in Philadelphia, can still be visited. He also raised troops for the
revolution and eventually gained the rank of captain in 1777, having participated in several battles. While in the field, he continued to paint, doing miniature portraits of various officers in the
Continental Army, of which he would develop enlarged versions in later years. He served in the Pennsylvania state assembly in 1779-80, after which he returned to painting full-time.
In
1778 his second son
Rembrandt Peale (1778-1860), was born. Rembrandt became one of the most important American painters in his time.
Peale was quite prolific as an artist, and while he did portraits of scores of historic figures (such as
John Hancock,
Thomas Jefferson and
Alexander Hamilton), he is probably best known for his portraits of
George Washington. The first time Washington ever sat for a portrait was with Peale in 1772, and there would be six other sittings; using these seven as models Peale produced altogether close to 60 portraits of Washington. In January 2005 a full length portrait of "Washington at Princeton" from 1779 sold for $21.3 million dollars -setting a record for the highest price paid for an American portrait.
In
1791 he married
Elizabeth de Peyster (d.1804), his second wife, with whom he had another six children. In
1795 they had a son
Franklin Peale born on October 15 at Philadelphia. His son Franklin became the Chief Coiner at the Philadelphia Mint. In
1799 Titian Ramsay Peale (1799-1885), was born, who became an important naturalist and early developer of the science, technique and art of photography.
He also had a great interest in
natural history, and organized the first U.S. scientific expedition in
1801. These two major interests combined in his founding of what became the Philadelphia Museum, and was later renamed the
Peale Museum. This museum was stocked with artwork supplied by Peale, as well as artifacts of natural history, such as a
mastodon skeleton found on the first expedition. After his death, the museum was sold to, and split up by, showmen
P. T. Barnum and
Moses Kimball.
In
1802 he had a daughter
Elizabeth De Peyster Peale (1802-57), who married
William Augustus Patterson (1792-1833), in 1820.
In
1804 he married a Quakeress from Philadelphia named
Hannah More, who raised the children from his previous two marriages.
Peale could accurately be described as a "
renaissance man", having developed a certain level of expertise in such diverse fields as
carpentry,
dentistry,
optometry,
shoemaking and
taxidermy. He also wrote several books, among which were
An Essay on Building Wooden Bridges (1797) and
An Epistle to a Friend on the Means of Preserving Health (1803). Each named for artists themselves, Peale taught all of his children to paint, and three of them,
Rembrandt,
Raphaelle and
Titian Ramsay, became noted artists in their own right.
His brother-in-law was Congressman
Nathaniel RamseyImage:C W Peale - Portrait of John and Elizabeth Lloyd Caldwater.jpeg|Portrait of John and Elizabeth Lloyd Caldwater (1772) Image:C W Peale - The Exhumation of the Mastadon.jpeg|The Exhumation of the Mastadon (1806)Image:Washington peale.jpg|George Washington at Princeton (1779)Image:T Jefferson by Charles Willson Peale 1791.jpg|Portrait of Thomas Jefferson (1791) Image:C W Peale - The Artist in His Museum.jpg|The Artist in His Museum (1802)Image:Charles Willson Peale 001.jpg|The Staircase Group (Portrait of Raphaelle Peale and Titian Ramsay Peale) (1795)Image:Washington 1772.JPG|George Washington in uniform, as colonel of the First Virginia Regiment (1772)Image:MeriwetherLewis.jpeg|Meriwether LewisImage:WilliamClark.jpeg|William ClarkImage:JohnHancockSmall.jpeg|John HancockImage:T Jefferson by Charles Willson Peale 1791_2.jpg|Thomas JeffersonImage:CWPeale .jpg|Charles Pettit (1792)*
Voice of America article on record price for American portrait*
Charles Peale's Gravesite
