Charles Willson Peale

Paper Summary:

This paper offers a look into the life, work and contribution of Peale to the American Enlightenment society. It examines his early life as a portrait artist and then looks at his involvement in the Revolutionary movement in America in the late 1700's. It discusses his association with the Philadelphia Museum of Natural History and Art and the contribution he made to early American culture.

From the Paper:

"Charles Willson Peale, the patriarch of the Peale family, was not only an artist, but also a multifaceted man of the American Enlightenment who engaged in society and culture in a wide assortment of ways. His papers, as well as his children's, contain materials of a highly assorted nature, reflecting the varied interests and pursuits of the family. The Peale Family has usually been characterized as a talented family of artists. Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827) painted more than one thousand portraits of the elite figures in colonial America and the early republic, in many cases providing us with our only resemblance of these individuals. Two of his seven sons were artists: Raphaelle (1774-1825) and Rembrandt (1778-1860). His brother, James (1749-1831), was a noted miniature painter in Philadelphia. Two of James's daughters, Anna Claypoole (1791-1878) and Sarah Miriam (1800-1885), were among the earliest professional women painters in America. However, labeling the Peales just as artists obscures as much as it reveals about them. (Encyclopedia Britannica)"

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