, 1901-09-26

The Philadelphia Inquirer of Sunday
morning. Sept. Is, has the following
sketch of the Peale family, and espec-
tally of Charles Wilson Peale, son of
the original progenitor in this country,
who come from England with Lord
Baltimore.
Raphael Peale, the son of Charles
Wilson Peale was the grandfather of
Edmund Peale of this city.
The Inquirer's story follows:
1t is not often that a family Of paint
ers can reckon the period of their pro-
ductiveness by centuries. The Peale
family is such a one. For more than
a century and a half some members of
this family of artistic people have been
actively engaged in the practice of art,
and even today the last of the painters
of this line, Miss Mary Peale, though
past seventy years of age, receives or
ders for portraits or for copies of the
most celebrated works of her distin-
guished relatives.
The family is of English extraction,
the original progenitor in this country
being a Charles Peale, who came here
from England with Lord Baltimore.
This Charles Peale had been educated
for the Church of England, and later in
his life he became a sort of circuit
preacher and a school teacher while
the colonies were still English posses
sions. The difficulties of earning a
livelihood after the republic was form
ed proved too trying for this English
man, n eventually he died, leaving
a widow and four children, one of
whom was the Charles Wilson Feale
who was destined in time to make the
Peale name famous
This lad was apprenticed to a sad
der in Annapolis. He was born at
Charlestown, Nd, April 16, 1741. He
developed a taste for painting and pres
emily abandoned his trade for the pro-
fession of p%ortraiture. He studied in
Boston for a brief period under John
Copley, and in 1870 a number of his
fathers friends advanced the then
promising young man enough money
to continue his art education in Lon
don. This oar he afterwards con
s~cientiously repaid, but in the mean.
time he used it to good advantage. In
London Peale became a pupil Of Ben
jamin West, and he studied also mod
| cling in wax, casting and moulding in
plaster, engraving and miniature
painting.
In IVA he returned to Annapolis and
two years later he established himself
permanently in Philadelphia, with
which city the family has always been
more or less identified ever since,
though its many descendants have
lived in New York, in Washington and
in some of the lesser-known Pennsyl
vania towns.
This first prominent Peale was a
versatile person, a man of wide re
search and boundless energy. He was
in his day a soldier, legislator and
naturalist and a collector of all sorts
of natural curiosities. With these and
some portraits he opened, in 1902,
Peale's museum, which was the fore
runner of the present academy, and a
| place of much popular interest. 1t was
one of Charles Wilson Peale's ambi
tions to form an art academy in Phila'
delphia, and though he worked hard
| for some years to this end it was not
| until later that his dream was realized
He lived to contribute to seventeen OF
the annual exhibitions which from the
start have been features of that an
| cient institution.
Peale tried his hand at dentistry
and he also became an author in a
somewhat stilted way, some of the
subjects upon which he expressed
himself in writing being the Building
Of Wooden Bridges" a discourse in
i troductory to a course of lectures or
natural history, an "Epistle on the
means Of Preserving Health and one
on Domestic Happiness" Charles
Wilson Peale's portraits of Washing
ton are the best-next to Gilbert
Stuart's-which have been handed
down to US. At one time Peale was
the only portrait painter in the colo
MES, and his orders were many
Washington gave him fourteen sit
tings. He painted Martha Washing
ton, John Hancock, Robert Morris
Nathanial Green, Horatio Gates, Ben
jamin Lincoln, Baron Stenton, Count
~Rochambeau, Baron De Kalb, Benja
min Franklin, Charles Carroll, Lord
Stirling, Bishop White, DR.. Rush, John
Witherspoon, James Monroe and An
drew jackson.
Charles Wilson Peale's last canvas
was a portrait Of himself painted in
his eighty-third year. This picture
now hangs In u own academy In
Philadelphia. A brother Of Charles
Wilson Peale also turned his attention
to painting. This was James Peale
whose portraits Of Washington are
owned by the New York Historical 70
ciety and by this city. One 10 hanging
in Independence hall. This James
Peale had a son James who also paint
ed, but the gift seems to have mani
tested itself most strongly among
Charles Wilson Peale's children, since