Rubens Peale diaries
name: label: Creator
content: Peale, Rubens, 1784-1865
topic: label: Occupation
content: Museum administrators
label: Occupation
content: Painters -- Pennsylvania
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: The collection was donated to the Archives of American Art in 1959 by Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence A. Fleischman.
creator: label: Creator
content: Peale, Rubens, 1784-1865
setName: label: See more items in
content: Rubens Peale diaries
abstract: label: Summary
content: The Rubens Peale diaries date from 1855-1865 and measure 0.2 linear feet. The collection consists of four bound diaries with daily entries made during the last ten years of Peale's life when he turned seriously to painting, primarily producing still life and animal paintings. While entries frequently concern farm and family activities, there are also many references to his painting. Entries from April 1865 describe the news of Abraham Lincoln's assassination and funeral procession.
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: Philadelphia born museum director and painter Rubens Peale is known for his still life paintings and was the son of artist and naturalist Charles Willson Peale.

During his twenties and thirties Peale was director of his father's museum in Philadelphia and then of the Peale Museum in Baltimore. He opened his own museum in New York in 1825 but ultimately sold his collection to P.T. Barnum in 1843. 

Meanwhile, in 1837, he moved to the estate of his father-in-law, George Patterson, near Schuylkill Haven, Pennsylvania. In October 1855 he began keeping a journal and turned to still life painting as an extension of his interest in natural history. He continued learning and developing as an artist and one year before his death returned to Philadelphia to study landscape painting with Edward Moran. In the final decade of his life Peale produced 130 paintings.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 0.2 Linear Feet
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1855-1865
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives of American Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: AAA.pealrube
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Diaries
arrangement: label: Arrangement
content: Due to the small size of this collection the diaries are arranged as one series.
processinfo: label: Processing Information
content: The collection was microfilmed after receipt on Reel D10. The diaries were processed and a finding aid prepared by Stephanie Ashley in 2023 with funding provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art and The Walton Family Foundation.
altformavail: label: Existence and Location of Copies
content: The collection was digitized in 2023 and is available on the Archives of American Art website.
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Diaries
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: The Rubens Peale diaries date from 1855-1865 and measure 0.2 linear feet. The collection consists of four bound diaries with daily entries made during the last ten years of Peale's life when he turned seriously to painting, primarily producing still life and animal paintings. While entries frequently concern farm and family activities, there are also many references to his painting. Entries from April 1865 describe the news of Abraham Lincoln's assassination and funeral procession.