BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 
Italian Sculptor Ceracchi (who afterwards conspired against 
the life of Buonaparte). Among these Mr. Peale was the 
only portrait painter in oil. At his house the meetings 
were held, and the conversations were often interesting un- 
der all the excitements of imagination and genius; but they 
ended in a separation into two unproductive parties; the 
native artists contented with a school of art, and the for- 
eigners swelling with a mighty scheme of a national 
Academy. 
In the year 1794 another experiment was made at Mr. 
Peale’s — an academy was formed; some plaister casts were 
collected, and arrangements were made to draw from the 
life. When the person (a baker) who was engaged to stand as 
the model, found himself surrounded by new faces and pene- 
trating eyes, he shrunk from the scrutiny, and precipitately 
fled. In this dilemma Mr. Peale stripped and presented 
himself as the model to his fellow artists. An exhibition 
was likewise got up, intended to be annual. It was opened 
in the Hall of Independence; comprised a very respectable 
display of pictures, chiefly lent by private gentlemen, and 
was well attended by the public. 
It was not until 1810 that a foundation could be laid for 
a permanent Academy. Again the amateurs of the Arts 
were invited to meet at Mr. Peale’s; but their number was 
so small, and their influence over the public mind so limited, 
that nothing but the most zealous exertions of Mr. Joseph 
Hopkinson could have availed in procuring the funds which 
were necessary to erect a suitable building, and to import 
from Europe the requisite plaister casts. Mr. Peale and his 
son, who was recently from Europe, laboured incessantly 
to mend and display these objects, and to organize the 
drawing academies. He lived to see and contribute to 
seventeen annual exhibitions. 
Early rising, temperate repasts, and industrious habits, 
had invigorated his constitution, and he had reached his 
eighty-fifth year with but little interruption to his health, 
and pleasantly talked of living to be at least a hundred years 
old. The manner of his death was strictly accordant with 
the peculiarities of his life; for it was not so much the con- 
sequence of old age as of too much youth, in imprudently 
carrying his own trunk to get up with a stage which he 
feared would leave him behind. This induced a violent 
palpitation and disorder of bis heart, from which he had 
scarcely recovered, when he indiscreetly mounted the high- 
est ladder at the new building of the Arcade, the upper 
rooms of which were being constructed to ho^d his Museum. 
This brought on a relapse and his speedy and lamented 
death, in 1827; leaving his Museum as a joint stock to his 
children; Raphael, Angelica Kaufman, Rembrandt, Ru- 
bens, Sophonisba Camera, Linnaeus, Franklin, Sybilla, 
Meriam, Elizabeth, and Titian. 
Few men have passed through a greater variety of scenes 
and occupations. Perhaps in the organization of his mind 
there was too great a propensity to indulge in every novel 
occupation; certainly there was a peculiarity of fancy which 
controlled him in these enjoyments; he loved to do what 
nobody around him could do, and exhibited the most ex- 
traordinary industry, perseverance, and ingenuity to accom- 
plish his purposes. His chief delight, though of a cheerful 
and social temper, was to find himself alone in the trackless 
ocean of experiments, contending with the rough elements 
and surmounting difficulties as they followed in successive 
waves never sinking, never despairing. At first a saddler, 
harness and coach maker; then a silversmith and watchma- 
ker; it was not till his 26th year that his eyes opened to the 
boundless fields of art; but in this pursuit h'e mingled the 
greatest variety, painting in oil, in crayons, and in minia- 
ture; modelling in clay, wax and plaister; sawing his own 
ivory, moulding his glasses, and making the shagreen cases 
for the miniatures which he painted, at a time when none 
of these articles could be procured, owing to the derange- 
ments of a revolutionary war. He made himself a wooden 
mannequin or lay-figure, upon which to cast his draperies; 
made a violin and guitar, and assisted in the construction of 
the first organ built in Philadelphia. But it was chiefly in 
multitudinous operations connected with his Museum that 
he found continual employment for his invention and me- 
chanical propensities. Transparent paintings with change- 
able effects of light and colour, and figures in motion; the 
preservation of every variety of animals; the moulding of 
glass eyes, carving wooden limbs, upon which to stretch 
the skins of his quadrupeds, with anatomical accuracy, &c. 
Many precious months of his life were consumed in per- 
fecting, with Mr. J. H. Hawkins, their Polygraph, which 
became one of his untiring hobbies, as he never wrote a 
letter afterwards without preserving a cotemporaneous 
duplicate. 
For a number of years he supplied the dificiencies of his 
teeth with ivory of his own manufacture, and finally suc- 
ceeded in making them of porcelain, not only for himself 
and family, but for others, as he prided himself on being 
the only operator in this style in America. 
We shall close this sketch by an observation of Colonel 
Trumbull: “That an interesting comparison’ might be 
drawn between Mr. Peale and his countryman Mr. WeSst, 
who was a striking instance how much could be accom- 
plished with moderate genius, by a steady and undeviating 
course directed to a single object; to become the first His- 
torical painter of his age; whilst the other, with a more 
