"Staircase Group (Portrait of Raphaelle Peale and Titian Ramsey Peale)," by Charles Wilson Peale, 1795. Oil on canvas from the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

 

The Peale Family

The Creation of a Legacy, 1770-1870

By Karla Klein Albertson

PHILADELPHIA, PENN. - As a family, the Peales produced an extraordinary number of brilliantly talented artists who flourished in the late Eighteenth Century and throughout much of the Nineteenth. So many were so good that, out of sheer cowardice, most museums in earlier shows have chosen to deal with them one painter at a time.

This year, however, the Peales all come together in the comprehensive exhibition "The Peale Family: Creation of a Legacy, 1770-1870," organized by the Trust for Museum Exhibitions in Washington in collaboration with guest curator Dr Lillian B. Miller, editor of The Peale Papers. This group show unites the work of ten important family members of two generations in a way which fully illustrates the Peales' contribution to early American cultural history.

In an introductory essay for the superb show catalogue, Dr Miller emphasizes the Peales were raised to feel responsible for one another. "They were a very tightly knit family," explains Darrel Sewell, curator of American art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where the exhibition premiered in early November and remains on display through January 5. Sewell continues, "They didn't always get along, but they certainly did communicate. The Peales were also unusual in the number of portraits they made of each other." The entire first section of the show, in fact, is devoted to these personal depictions of the extended Peale family.

The painting dynasty began with Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827), whose decision to abandon his original trade as a saddler for a career in painting dramatically changed family history. On a trip to buy leather for his Annapolis shop, Peale saw some poorly-done paintings, confidently decided he could do better himself, and began taking art lessons. Fleeing from business creditors to Boston - he had not been a very successful saddler - a chance meeting with John Singleton Copley confirmed his feet on the path which would eventually take him to London to study painting with Benjamin West.

Peale had married Rachel Brewer, the daughter of a wealthy Maryland land owner in 1762, and a group of local planters and merchants sponsored his productive study trip abroad. Dr Miller writes, "In London from 1767 to 1769, Peale developed the artistic versatility that would characterize his entire career: full-size oil portraiture, miniature painting (watercolor on ivory), sculpture and mezzotint engraving. He returned to Maryland schooled in the major elements of the British portrait tradition, which with some modifications to conform to American taste and changing social expectations, he passed on to his brother and children, and through them and their influence, to a younger generation of American artists."

The miracle of the Peale legacy is the fact that, not only was Charles able to train his brother James as an excellent portrait painter and miniaturist, but the two men passed on their abilities to their male and female children - as if artistic talent was an inherited genetic trait like red hair or a strong chin. Thanks to the family's aforementioned tendency to paint each other, visitors to the exhibition soon become intimately acquainted with the lively, intelligent faces of all the Peales. Not long after his return to the colonies, Charles began working on a canvas showing his closest relatives grouped around the table, what he called "the Portraits of the whole in one piece, emblematical of family concord." This is on display, as is the heart-rending image of Rachel weeping over their dead baby, a study of brother James executing a miniature at his easel, and the artist's mature self-portrait in the Peale Museum, a project he began in 1784.

Charles had 17 children by his first two wives - no wonder the poor women died young. The earliest surviving boys and girls were given ambitious names in line with their father's artistic interests - Raphaelle, Rembrandt, Titian and Angelica Kaufmann Peale. As can be seen by works in the exhibition, a number of these offspring fulfilled the promise of their names by becoming outstanding painters in their own right.

Others, such as Titian Ramsay II, were more interested in scientific illustration or management of the family museums. Later sons, in fact, received the scientifically-oriented names Benjamin Franklin and Charles Linnaeus Peale.

In contrast, brother James Peale's artistic successors came from the ranks of his daughters, who seem to have received the same encouragement and training from members of the family as their male cousins. While Margaretta and Maria exercised their modest talent for still life painting at home, sisters Anna Claypoole and Sarah Miriam became full-fledged professionals, executing portrait commissions of wealthy clients and famous statesmen.

Anne Sue Hirshorn, one of the talented young scholars Miller assembled to contribute essays to the catalogue, is an expert on the female Peales. In her contribution, she writes, "Anna struggled to reconcile polar opposites - the unwritten decrees of social conventions with the demands of her profession - but Sarah seems to have accepted the singularity of her professional life from the outset."

As would be expected in any household, the close-knit relationship between its members was often challenged as individual artists tried to balance personal talent and familial obligation. For example, while Anne chose to assist her father James in his work as a portrait miniaturist, Sarah preferred large scale portraiture and still lifes, eventually going off to pursue her career in St Louis. Among Charles' sons, the volatile Raphaelle wrestled with personal demons as he attempted to fulfill paternal expectations, while brother Rembrandt seemed to please without effort.

In the final analysis, the overall effect of the show - 200 paintings and works on paper - is its demonstration of the Peales' collective impact on the artistic and scientific life of their period. Sewell explains, "It's a big show: the Peales did a lot and lived a long time. It encompasses almost a hundred years of art. I think people will be very interested in the portraits, which are so much more than just paintings of individuals; they have a real meaning in terms of society and family and the artist-patron relationship."

In addition to the family images, there are two galleries of commissioned portraits of "Friends and Neighbors" and another which exhibits "Figures in the Public Eye," including famous Peale canvasses of Washington and Jefferson.

Displayed in a separate section for conservation reasons are the numerous miniature portraits executed by the family, especially by James Peale and his daughter Anna, who specialized in the medium. Other sections are devoted to the Peale museums, historical paintings, landscapes and the accomplished still lifes, a genre that seems to have appealed to all the exhibition's artists.

After closing in Philadelphia, "The Peale Family: Creation of a Legacy, 1770-1870" moves to San Francisco for a January 25-April 6, 1997, run at the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum. It then returns east to the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, April 24-July 6, 1997.

No library on American painting will be complete without the accompanying 300-page reference, filled with Peale paintings and essays on their art. The catalogue can be ordered directly from the bookstore at the Philadelphia Museum, 215/684-7960, for $65 hardcover or $43 softcover plus $8 postage and handling. The reference is distributed nationally through bookstores by Abbeville Press.

Karla Klein Albertson's review of two important exhibitions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art will continue in a forthcoming issue with "The Cadwalader Family: Art and Style in Early Philadelphia."