The fourth volume in this widely praised series chronicles the last years of prominent American artist Charles Willson Peale, a time of struggle for the family patriarch and his talented sons. The documents in this illuminating collection poignantly describe Peale's travails as his own health deteriorates and as he and his family attempt to cope with the economic forces of the era--panic, depression, and financial instability. The Peales' desire to create for their young country a meaningful artistic culture through works of art and public institutions forms an important chapter in the American story.

Arranged chronologically and accompanied by an introduction and annotations, the materials in this volume disclose Peale's diminishing enthusiasm for agricultural pursuits, resumption of his management of the Philadelphia Museum with the help of sons Titian Ramsay and Franklin, and his important artistic accomplishments, including the famous self-portrait The Artist in His Museum. Meanwhile, Peale's adult sons were working to establish themselves in the urban centers of the republic: Rubens not only took over and enlarged the troubled museum in Baltimore, he opened another museum in New York City that flourished despite the depressed economy; Rembrandt gained stature as a portraitist in New York City and produced such handsome portraits as the "standard likeness" of George Washington, Patriae Pater; and Raphaelle, though suffering from disabling pain and illness, earned a reputation before his death as a master of the still-life genre.


Published for the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution