

C. I 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



OF 



CHARIiES WIIiliSON FEAI.E. 



The records of Natural History and of the Fine Arts in 

 this country would be incomplete, without some notice of a 

 man who was among the earliest to cultivate a taste for 

 Painting, and the first to establish a Museum of Natural His- 

 tory, even when the name of Museum was scarcely recog- 

 nized from the European dictionaries. It would require 

 more time than we can now bestow, to perform this duty 

 with the minuteness which might be desired. We will, 

 therefore, content ourselves vvith a slight sketch of his va- 

 ried career. 



His father, Charles Peale, is still remembered by some 

 of the oldest inhabitants of Maryland as a gentleman of libe- 

 ral education and polite manners; greatly respected as a 

 teacher at Chestertown, where he occasionally officiated in 

 the pulpit, when the clergyman of the parish happened to 

 be absent. He was a native of Rutlandshire in England; 

 proud of the freedom vs'hich Britons enjoyed, but still 

 prouder of the advantages which he foresaw were to be de- 

 veloped here. He died in the year 1750, leaving a widow 

 and five children, of whom the eldest was Charles Willson, 

 the subject of the present memoir; Margaret Jane, who 

 first married a British officer, afterwards Colonel Nathaniel 

 Ramsay; St. George, who was distinguished as the head of 

 the Land Office; Elizabeth Digby, who married Captain 

 Polk; and James, who has been long distinguished as a 

 painter of miniatures and still life. 



Charles Willson Peale was born at Chestertown, on the 

 eastern shore of Maryland, April 16th, 1741. At an early 

 age he was bound apprentice to a saddler in Annapolis; 

 and the habits of industry which he acquired under the ob- 

 ligations of that servitude, gave a character to the labours 

 of his whole life, to which was added a perseverance from 

 his own peculiar temperament, which seemed to delight in 

 conquering difficulties. 



He was married before he was twenty-one years of age, 

 and for several years carried on the business of his appren- 

 ticeship; to which he successively added coach, clock and 

 watch making, and something of the silversmith business. 



But this variety of occupation, though it amused the eager 

 and volatile fancy of a youth of very sanguine temperament, 

 instead of advancing his interest, only accumulated around 

 him embarrassments which distressed him for a long time. 



Hitherto he had thought but little of drawing; yet he 

 had copied some prints with a pen and ink, had coloured 

 prints on glass, and even painted an Adam and Eve from 

 the inspiration of Milton. It was on a visit to Norfolk, 

 where he went to purchase leather, that seeing a portrait 

 and some landscapes painted by a Mr. Frazier, — instead of 

 being stimulated by a display of excellence to aspire to excel- 

 cnce in art — it was the badness of the performances which en- 

 couraged him in the idea of surpassing them. He therefore se- 

 cretly procured some pigments and canvass from a coach ma- 

 ker, and soon surprised liis friends by a landscape and por- 

 trait of himself, in which he was represented holding a palette 

 and brushes in his hand, with a clock in the background. He 

 never could remember to whom he had given this portrait, 

 or where it had been mislaid, till forty years afterwards, it 

 was discovered tied up as a bag, and containing a pound or 

 two of whiting; having travelled, unopened, during the 

 revolutionary struggles, from place to place. This picture 

 immediately drew him into notice, and procured him em- 

 ployment, still further to the disadvantage of his original 

 business. 



His mind was now wholly bent on painting, and it was 

 necessary to procure the proper materials for it. He had 

 never seen an easel or palette, and knew only the most 

 common colours which the coach painters then used. For 

 this purpose he travelled to Philadelphia, which was then 

 a journey of some fatigue and peril; and in the well fur- 

 nished shop of Christopher Marshall, was bewildered by 

 the variety of colours, the names of which he had never be- 

 fore heard. Some book on painting might relieve him from 

 this embarassment, and Rivington's bookstore furnished him 

 with the "Handmaid to the Arts." This, in the solitude 

 of his lodgings, he studied day and night for nearly a week, 

 before he could venture upon the selection and purchase of 



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