page_title: Rubens Peale
section_title: Early life and education
hierarchical_section_title: Rubens Peale / Early life and education
context_page_description: Rubens Peale was an American museum administrator and artist. Born in Philadelphia, he was the son of artist-naturalist Charles Willson Peale. Due to his weak eyesight, he did not practice painting seriously until the last decade of his life, when he painted still life.
context_section_description: He was the fourth son of Charles Willson Peale. Rubens had weak eyes and, unlike most of his siblings, did not set out to be an artist. He traveled with the family in 1802 to the United Kingdom, but was unable to travel on the continent with the resumption of war after the Peace of Amiens.  In 1803 he attended classes at the University of Pennsylvania.
  He was director of his father's museum in Philadelphia from 1810 to 1821, and then of the Peale Museum in Baltimore, which he ran with his brother, Rembrandt Peale. To promote the museum, he installed gas lighting illumination in the museum.
caption: Rubens Peale with a Geranium (1801) by Rembrandt Peale.
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