Charles Willson Peale

 Charles Wilson Peale (1741-1827)

Charles Willson Peale (April 15, 1741 – February 22, 1827) was an American painter, soldier, scientist, inventor, politician and naturalist. He is best remembered for his portrait paintings of leading figures of the American Revolution, and for establishing one of the first museums in the United States.

Peale was born in 1741 between modern-day Queenstown and Centreville, Queen Anne's County, Maryland, the son of Charles Peale and his wife Margaret. He had a younger brother, James Peale (1749–1831). Charles became an apprentice to a saddle maker when he was fourteen years old. Upon reaching maturity, he opened his own saddle shop and joined the Sons of Liberty. However, he was unsuccessful in saddle making. He then tried fixing clocks and working with metals, but both of these endeavors failed as well. He then took up painting.

Finding that he had a talent for painting, especially portraiture, Peale studied for a time under John Hesselius and John Singleton Copley. John Beale Bordley and friends eventually raised enough money for him to travel to England to take instruction from Benjamin West. Peale studied with West for three 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, Peale married Rachel Brewer (1744–1790), who bore him ten children, most named for Peale's favorite artists, male and female. The sons included Raphaelle Peale (1774–1825), Rembrandt Peale(1778–1860), who was another famous portrait painter and museum owner/operator in Baltimore, and scientific inventor and businessman, Titian Peale I (1780–1798), and Rubens Peale (1784–1865). Among the daughters: Angelica Kauffman Peale (named for Angelica Kauffman, Peale's favorite female painter) married Alexander Robinson, her daughter Priscilla Peale wed Dr. Henry Boteler, and Sophonisba Angusciola Peale (named for Sofonisba Anguissola) married Coleman Sellers.

After Rachel's death in 1790, Peale married Elizabeth de Peyster (d. 1804) the next year. With his second wife, he had six additional children. One son, Franklin Peale, born on October 15, 1795, became the Chief Coiner at the Philadelphia Mint. Their youngest son, Titian Ramsay Peale (1799–1885), became an important naturalist and pioneer in photography. Their daughter, Elizabeth De Peyster Peale (1802–57), married William Augustus Patterson (1792–1833) in 1820.

Hannah More, a Quaker from Philadelphia, married Peale in 1804, becoming his third wife. She helped raise the younger children from his previous two marriages.

Peale's slave, Moses Williams, was also trained in the arts while growing up in the Peale household and later became a professional silhouette artist.

In 1810, Peale purchased a farm in Germantown where he intended to retire. He named this estate 'Belfield', and cultivated extensive gardens there. After Hannah's death in 1821, Peale lived with his son Rubens and sold Belfield in 1826. Peale died on February 22, 1827, and was buried at the Saint Peter's Episcopal Church in Philadelphia.

A  Renaissance man, Peale had expertise not only in painting but also in many diverse fields, including carpentry, dentistry, optometry, shoemaking, and taxidermy. In 1802, John Isaac Hawkins patented the second official physiognotrace, a mechanical drawing device, and partnered with Peale to market it to prospective buyers. Peale sent a watercolor sketch of the physiognotrace, along with a detailed explanation, to Thomas Jefferson. The drawing is now held with the Jefferson Papers in the Library of Congress.

Around 1804, Peale obtained the American patent rights to the polygraph from its inventor John Isaac Hawkins, about the same time as the purchase of one by Thomas Jefferson. Peale and Jefferson collaborated on refinements to this device, which enabled a copy of a handwritten letter to be produced simultaneously with the original.

Peale 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). Peale named all of his sons for artists or scientists, and taught them to paint. Three of them, Rembrandt, Raphaelle, and Titian, became noted artists in their own right.

He was the brother-in-law of Nathaniel Ramsey, a delegate to the Congress of the Confederation.