1741-1827 Charles Wilson Peale Galleries Finding that he had a talent for painting, especially portraitures, Peale studied for a time under John Hesselius and John Singleton Copley. Friends eventually raised enough money for him to travel to England to take instruction from Benjamin West. Peale studied with West for two 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. Peale's enthusiasm for the nascent national government brought him to the capital, Philadelphia, in 1776, where he painted portraits of American notables and visitors from overseas. His estate, which is on the campus of La Salle University in Philadelphia, can still be visited. He also raised troops for the War of Independence and eventually gained the rank of captain in the Pennsylvania militia by 1777, having participated in several battles. While in the field, he continued to paint, doing miniature portraits of various officers in the Continental Army. He produced enlarged versions of these in later years. He served in the Pennsylvania state assembly in 1779-1780, after which he returned to painting full-time. Peale painted in the trompe l'oeil style,[1] and was quite prolific as an artist. While he did portraits of scores of historic figures (such as John Hancock, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton), he is probably best known for his portraits of George Washington. The first time Washington ever sat for a portrait was with Peale in 1772, and there would be six other sittings; using these seven as models, Peale produced altogether close to 60 portraits of Washington. In January 2005, a full length portrait of "Washington at Princeton" from 1779 sold for $21.3 million dollars - setting a record for the highest price paid for an American portrait. Peale had a great interest in natural history, and organized the first U.S. scientific expedition in 1801. These two major interests combined in his founding of what became the Philadelphia Museum, and was later renamed the Peale Museum. This museum is considered the first. It housed a diverse collection of botanical, biological, and archaeological specimens. Most notably, the museum contained a large variety of birds which Peale himself acquired, and it was the first to display North American mammoth bones. The display of the mammoth bones entered Peale into a long standing debate between Thomas Jefferson and Comte de Buffon. Buffon argued that Europe was superior to the Americas biologically, which was illustrated through the size of animals found there. Jefferson referenced the existence of these mammoths (which he believed still roamed northern regions of the continent) as evidence for a greater biodiversity in America. Peale's display of these bones drew attention from Europe, as did his method of re-assembling large skeletal specimens in three dimensions. The museum was among the first to adopt Linnaean taxonomy. This system drew a stark contrast between Peale's museum and his competitors who presented their artifacts as mysterious oddities of the natural world. The museum underwent several moves during its existence. At various times it was located in several prominent buildings including Independence Hall and the original home of the American Philosophical Association. The museum would eventually fail in large part because Peale was unsuccessful at obtaining government funding. After his death, the museum was sold to, and split up by, showmen P. T. Barnum and Moses Kimball.  Related Paintings of Charles Wilson Peale :. | Portrait of Yarrow Mamout | Benjamin and Eleanor Ridgely Laming | Portrait of a lady | Die Ausgrabung eines Mastodon | Portrait of James Peale |
Related Artists:
Salomon de Caus
b France, 1576; bur Paris, 28 Feb 1626,He was a Huguenot from the Dieppe region (Normandy). Between c. 1595 and 1598 he visited Italy, where he was strongly influenced by the gardens laid out c. 1570 by Bernardo Buontalenti at Pratolino, near Florence, and by their mechanical artifices. De Caus's work also reveals a knowledge of the gardens of the Villa d'Este in Tivoli. From c. 1598 to 1610 he was in Brussels, in the service of the Stadholder of the Netherlands, Albert, Archduke of Austria. There he was the engineer responsible for wells, fountains and the automatic works in the two grottoes (destr. 1768) in the garden of the Stadholder's residence. From 1610 he lived in England, moving in the artistic circle of Henry, Prince of Wales, to whom he taught drawing and for whom he built a picture gallery at Richmond. Together with Constantino de' Servi (1554-1622) he was engineer and supervisor of the waterworks at Richmond Palace. De Caus dedicated his first book, La Perspective (1612), to Prince Henry and included garden designs for the Prince in his second book, Les Raisons des forces movvantes (1615). He worked at several sites in England, including Somerset House in London, where he is thought to have erected a Parnassus, and at Greenwich Palace, Hatfield House and Gorhambury House (Herts) and Wilton House (Wilts). Nothing has survived of his work of this period.
ZURBARAN Francisco de
Spanish Baroque Era Painter, 1598-1664 Spanish painter. He was apprenticed in 1614 to a painter in Sevilla (Seville), where he lived until 1658 when he moved to Madrid. He had a few royal commissions but remained throughout his life a provincial painter of religious pictures. His apostles, saints, and monks are painted with almost sculptural modeling, and his emphasis on the minutiae of their dress lends verisimilitude to their miracles, visions, and ecstasies. This distinctive combination of naturalism with religious sensibility conforms to the guidelines for Counter-Reformation artists outlined by the Council of Trent. He had numerous commissions from monasteries and churches throughout southern Spain, and many of his works were sent to Lima, Peru.
LINARD, Jacques
French Baroque Era Painter, ca.1600-1645 French painter. He was in Paris by 1626, and his first securely attributed still-life work is dated the following year. He lived in the Saint-Germain-des-Pr?s district, where a number of French still-life painters such as Louise Moillon and Lubin Baugin worked alongside Flemish artists specializing in this genre. In 1631 he was created Peintre et Valet de Chambre du Roi, a post that guaranteed him a degree of financial independence. Linard's works of 1627-44 were mainly of fruit and flowers; with Louise Moillon, however, he was among the first French artists to combine successfully the female form with still-life elements, as, for example, in Woman with Flowers and Woman with Fruit (both Paris, priv. col., see Far?, 1974, pp. 22-3). A painting such as Basket of Flowers (Paris, Louvre) owes something to Flemish prototypes in the anachronistic grouping of flowers that span several months. Patiently recording the flowers as they bloomed, and working on the picture from a series of drawings and sketches, Linard demonstrated his commitment to working from nature. However