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| presidentgeorgewashington.wordpress.com |
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| wikipedia.org |
Charles Wilson Peale (1741-1827) had the distinction of painting this, the first portrait of George Washington, in 1772. Peale had been a saddler, but when he failed in that business, he turned to portraiture. And Washington was a natural choice as a sitter because the two men had served together in the military. They formed a friendship that lasted the rest of Washington's life, and Peale eventually painted dozens of Washington portraits.
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| www.uwf.edu |
Peale, who was the patriarch of a family of artists, was a man of many interests and many talents. Here's a self-portrait from 1822, with Peale showing off his museum, the first in the United States. The Peale museum was particularly significant because it displayed assembled mastodon skeletons from scientific expeditions that Peale had organized.
Charles Wilson Peale's portraits of George Washington are his most important work, but the painting that probably generates the most appreciation is the 1795 painting of Peale's sons Raphaelle and Titian, below.
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| photo by Don Juan Tenorio |
A masterpiece of trompe l'oeil, the stairway painting is surrounded by a real door frame and includes a perfectly matching real bottom step.
In his last days, George Washington visited Peale's studio and came across this painting. The courtly Washington was used to gawkers and as he passed by, he turned to the boys and bowed.
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Hello Mark, That's a great story about the stairway painting. I was just in the Cleveland Museum of Art, and one of the paintings we looked at was Peale's portrait of Washington at the Battle of Princeton, a great pose with Washington's hand resting casually on a cannon. It apparently was one of the earlier paintings collected by the new museum in 1917.
ReplyDelete--Road to Parnassus
Hello, Jim,
DeleteI would love to have seen the Cleveland Battle of Princeton painting in person and up close. Charles Wilson Peale painted a number of copies of that painting, including one in the possession of Yale. According to Wikipedia, one copy sold in 2005 for $21.3 million, the highest price ever paid for an American portrait. Wouldn't it be ironic if it's now in a foreign collection?
Dear Mark - this is so strange that you should be posting a trompe l'oeil painting on the same day as me - great minds think alike!!!
ReplyDeleteIt is an example of a trompe l'oeil painting successfully tricking the eye where George Washington was concerned.
I like the painting of Peale in his museum, and the way he is raising the curtain to invite the viewer, both with his eyes and hand, to enter. Is the museum still in existence?
Dear Rosemary,
DeleteI'm glad you asked about the fate of Peale's museum! The museum lasted until 1997, when its contents were handed over to the Maryland Historical Society. But shortly after Peale's death, much of the original collection was broken up and sold to various buyers, one of whom was the circus entrepeneur P. T. Barnum. Peale had been a collector of natural curiosities, including dinosaur bones, and I'm guessing Barnum acquired those.
In my own reading of Peale, I discovered that Thomas Jefferson (who displayed mastodon bones at Monticello) believed that mastodons still roamed northern regions of America.
Dear Mark, One of my college art history professors spent an entire semester explaining Charles Wilson Peale and his contemporary, John Singleton Copley, to us. As far as I can recall no mention was made of Peale's trompe l'oeil stairway painting, a very successful fool the eye accomplishment.
ReplyDeleteDear Gina,
DeleteI would say that was an omission on his or her part, but then there's a lot of Charles to unpeale. I know that Peale studied with John Singleton Copley, who is a great favorite of mine. I think that all of the colonial artists of merit were especially remarkable in that they didn't have ready access to good art as inspiration, except through each other.
I have always loved the stairway painting! It is a wonderful example of trompe. The self portrait with the curtain to me, shows the ego of an artist. I always thought it was so dramatic. Great post!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Theresa! I think CWP must have been a very interesting person to know, and he might just be a candidate for the all-time dinner party.
DeleteDear Mark,
ReplyDeleteWhat a fantastic post-- once again, in visiting your blog, I feel like I've opened a dream-magazine full of one great article after another... Peale is such a wonderful character-- I wish I could have been there for his museum tour! These paintings really define a complex and deep-thinking (and humorous)individual-- I'd count him among my all-time dinner guests, too!
Warm regards,
Erika
Dear Erika,
DeleteThank you for your kind comment! A tour of Peale's museum would have revealed many, many birds, and one can see that in the 1822 self-portrait. Among his myriad interests and talents, Peale was a taxidermist! He collected birds, and because the English were curious about American animals, forged a deal with English museums to trade American birds for English birds.
Best wishes,
Mark
My goodness!! That trompe loi :) painting is indeed a showstopper. Such wit, creativity and execution!!
ReplyDeleteHi, Loi!
DeleteIt is a showstopper, literally, or at least a tourstopper. As I look at the painting and that bottom step, it occurs to me that this has been beautifully maintained for all its years.
Fun post, Mark! thanks for sharing this. I have always wanted an upstairs. Maybe I should paint a stairway!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Lynne. I enjoyed the exchange at Alan's blog, too. I hope he's doing some teaching — he's a natural for it!
DeleteI'm aware of Peale but I've never seen this piece before. It's amazing! I was going to ask--and I see that you've mentioned in the comments--if the stair was also original. My last condo, the top two floors of another Greek Revival had and staircase to the attic whose bottom stair protruded one step beyond the door. I had never seen that before but I guess mine wasn't the only one.
ReplyDeleteHi, Steve,
DeleteNow that you mention it, I can't recall ever having seen a staircase with an extending bottom step like this! Perhaps such a design disappeared as carpeting became more affordable. Maybe we should get a grant and look into it!
What an extraordinary man...anyone who names thier sons Raphaelle (sp?)and Titian is OK in my book
ReplyDeleteHello, smr,
DeleteYes, you spelled Raphaelle's name correctly. And it gets better! Charles Wilson Peale also had sons named Rembrandt and Rubens.