Another student of Benjamin West, Charles Wilson Peale, studied with him a few years before John Trumbull came to study with West. Peale’s father died when he was still a child, so Peale had to drop out of school and apprentice to a saddle-maker. He was not especially suited to this profession and when he delivered a saddle to the painter John Hesselius, Peale was able to barter the saddle for a few painting lessons. Peale was inspired and convinced. He knew that he could make a more pleasant living painting, than in the drudgery of saddle making. He found some benefactors that helped him to travel to England and study under West and would spend the rest of his life making portraits for the early American political elite and society.
Sellers explains that a viewer can see the character of Peale through his portraits, as it is impossible for the artist to not deposit a little of himself in the portrait, assigning qualities to the sitter that the artist possesses. Peale was especially good at painting children. They are full of expressions, grinning, and feel true to life. His own demeanor shone through the children. Peale would write in his autobiography that he desired to paint what he considered to be fine individuals and without that respect, Peale was not interested. He wrote, “It is the mind he would wish to represent through the features of the man, and such as do not possess a good mind, he does not desire to portray his features.”
Peale is an excellent example of an early American portraitist in the same vein as Trumbull because Peale, like Trumbull, painted many portraits of his family, especially his wife Rachel Brewer Peale. They married in 1762 and had ten children together. She died after 28 years of marriage, but during this time, Peale would paint her likeness multiple times in portraits, miniatures, and group family paintings. Peale would also paint their children’s portraits in different ways. Peale was adept at trompe l’oeil and enjoyed tricks of the eye in his paintings and often employed these techniques for the spectacle they caused.
Peale painted a portrait of two of his sons standing on a staircase. The older son is Raphael Peale who is holding a painter’s palette, and the younger son Titian Peale stands higher on the staircase looking down. The painting is playful and is meant to trick the eye. The painting is life-sized, and it appears to be a real staircase from afar. There is a story that when Peale was exhibiting this painting in the Peale Museum, he was escorting Washington around the building. When Washington encountered the staircase painting, he bowed in passing, as if he had passed two real people on a set of stairs. Afterward, Washington acknowledged that he had misinterpreted the painting as living people. Bellion claims that even if this incident did not actually fool Washington, it is at least another example of Washington’s “habitual politeness.” [7] Bellion goes on to explain that the trick often goes both ways. First, the audience is tricked by Peale, as in the case of Washington, and then Washington, joining the trick, enacts surprise, even if he had not been fooled.
CHARLES WILSON PEALE. THE STAIRCASE GROUP. PORTRAIT OF RAPHAELLE PEALE AND TITIAN PEALE. 1795. PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA.
Peale painted another portrait that employs another trick of the eye. In this painting, Peale, himself, sits easily in a wooden chair in the center, as in a self-portrait. He is staring directly at the viewer as if he has been disturbed in the studio while painting. In his hands are a paintbrush and palette. The canvas that Peale paints is turned to the viewer for the viewer to see that he is painting his wife, Brewer. She also looks directly at the viewer. Behind Peale stands their daughter Angelica Peale, who is also looking directly at the viewer. She has a mischievous smile on her face. Peale’s daughter is about ten years old, and she gently holds and guides her father’s paintbrush as he paints her mother. This is foreshadowing, though Peale could not have known this, because Angelica, herself, grows up to be a painter of merit. Within five years of this painting, Peale’s wife has died.
CHARLES WILSON PEALE. SELF PORTRAIT WITH ANGELICA AND PORTRAIT OF RACHEL. 1782-1785.
Boetcher explains that there is a long tradition of painting the dead. Peale’s “Mrs. Peale Lamenting the Death of her Child” also known as “Rachel Weeping” is similar to “Sarah Trumbull on her Deathbed” and is possibly an inspiration for Trumbull to paint Harvey during her moments on earth to lengthen and commemorate the moment. “Rachel Weeping” is a painting of Peale’s young daughter Margaret who has died. Less than a year old, she is lying peacefully in a bed covered in white linens. Her head rests on a pillow, and the white sheet is pulled back, to allow the child to be viewed. She is dressed in a white lace-trimmed dress with her hands secured to her side with a white linen sash. The mother, Brewer, has dark hair and pale skin. She is looking upward, as if to heaven. She sits behind the child and is weeping. One tear slides dramatically down her cheek. She holds in one hand a long white gauzy handkerchief. Behind Brewer, there is a table with bottles and labels, possibly medicines. These bottles give the impression that the child had been sick and died after illness. His daughter had died of smallpox in 1771. This was originally painted in 1772 showing just the child, but Peale enlarged the painting in 1776 to include his wife weeping over the baby. This painting is so emotionally charged that when Peale exhibited the painting, he did so behind a curtain. In front of the curtain, there was a notice that read, “Before you draw this curtain Consider whether you will afflict a Mother or a Father who has lost a Child.”
CHARLES WILSON PEALE. RACHEL WEEPING. 1772. ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND.
Peale’s family portraits could be considered private family portraits for public display. Around 1772, Peale began painting a portrait of his family, aptly titled, “Peale Family Group” and sometimes known as “The Artist and his Family.” He would lay aside this portrait, and not finish it until thirty-five years later, but through the years it was completed enough for Peale to use the painting often in his studio as a sort of advertisement for sitters for when they would come to his studio. While John Adams did not sit for Peale, he was in the studio one day and admired the painting. He wrote to his wife Abigail that Peale “shewed me a large Picture, continuing a Group of Figures which upon inquiry I found were his Family.” Adams continued, “There was a Pleasant, a happy Cheerfulness in the Countenances, and a Familiarity in their Airs toward each other. In fact, the portrait originally had a motto present that was later erased that read, “Concordies Anima” which means harmony embodied.
CHARLES WILSON PEALE. THE FAMILY GROUP. 1773. PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA.
Peale first conceived this painting as a private family portrait but then understood that it would have some public life. So much so that he wrote to his son Rembrandt Peale and advised him that he was going to devise a sort of key to hang below the painting so that people in future generations would know who was depicted in the portrait and why. That key if ever completed, has been lost to history, but it shows that Peale understood that as a painter his private and public collection would sometimes mix.
In this portrait, his wife and his mother sit at a table, each with a child. Both children would die in infancy, so it is possible that Peale put this portrait down in the beginning because of grief. Other family members, like Peale’s brother James, and even their dog are depicted. There are busts lined up on a shelf. Among others, Peale felt it important to include a bust of Isaac Newton and John Locke highlighting Peale’s Enlightenment ideals. Much of this painting portrays Peale’s Enlightenment ideals. In this portrait, he highlights the domestic family unit. He highlights the arts with his palette in hand, and he also emphasizes education and scientific discovery with the busts of Isaac Newton and John Locke. In 1808, when Peale set about to finish this portrait, his mind was that it was a private portrait, but he realized the public would be interested.
Peale, Charles Willson, and Charles Coleman Sellers. “Portraits and miniatures by Charles Willson Peale.” (No Title).
Sellers, Horace Wells, and C. W. Peale. “Charles Willson Peale, Artist-Soldier.” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 38.3 (1914): 257-286.
Bellion, Wendy. Citizen Spectator: Art, Illusion, and Visual Perception in Early National America. UNC Press Books, 2011.
Boettcher, Graham C. “The Artist’s Queen: John Trumbull’s” Sarah Trumbull on Her Deathbed”.” Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin (2015): 35-43.
Marks, Arthur S. “Private and Public in” The Peale Family”: Charles Willson Peale as Pater and Painter.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 156.2 (2012): 109-187.
