The following
description has been prepared entirely by the current owner, Roberts S. Fastov,
Esq., and, at the collector’s request, has not been edited by Sloans &
Kenyon
Note 1) Rembrandt Peale, who was the
son of Charles Willson Peale, and was and is considered to be one of the best
American portrait painters of the 19th century. See the following
Rembrandt Peale biographical sketch from Wikipedia:
Rembrandt Peale (February
22, 1778 – October 3, 1860) was an American artist and museum keeper. A
prolific portrait painter, he was especially acclaimed for his likenesses of
presidents George
Washington and Thomas Jefferson.
Peale's style was influenced by French Neoclassicism after
a stay in Paris in his early thirties.
Rembrandt
Peale was born the third of six surviving children (eleven had died) to his
mother, Rachel Brewer,
and father, Charles Willson
Peale in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, on February 22, 1778. The father, Charles, also a notable
artist, taught all of his children to paint scenery and portraiture, and tutored Rembrandt in the arts and sciences. Rembrandt
began drawing at the age of eight. A year after his mother’s death and the
remarriage of his father, Peale left the school of the arts, and completed his
first self-portrait at the age of 13. The canvas displays the young
artist's early mastery. The clothes, however, give the notion that Peale
exaggerated what a 13 year old would look like, and Peale's hair curls like the
hair of a Renaissance angel. Later in his life, Peale "often showed this
painting to young beginners, to encourage them to go from 'bad' to better…."[1]
In
July 1787, Charles Willson Peale introduced his son Rembrandt to George
Washington, and the young aspirant artist watched his father paint the future
president. In 1795, at the age of 17, Rembrandt painted an aging Washington,
making him appear far more aged than in reality. The portrait was well
received, and Rembrandt had made his debut.
At
the age of 20, Rembrandt married 22-year-old Eleanor May Short (1776–1836)
at St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Philadelphia.[2] During
their marriage, Rembrandt and Eleanor had nine children: Rosalba, Eleanor,
Sarah Miriam, Michael Angelo, and Emma Clara among them.
In
1822, Peale moved to New York City where he embarked on an attempt to paint
what he hoped would become the "standard likeness" of Washington. He
studied portraits by other artists including John Trumbull, Gilbert Stuart and his own father, as well as his own 1795 picture
which had never truly satisfied him. His resulting work Patriae Pater,
completed in 1824, depicts Washington through an oval window, and is considered
by many to be second only to Gilbert Stuart's iconic Athenaeum painting of the
first president. Peale subsequently attempted to capitalize on the success of
what quickly became known as his "Porthole" picture. Patriae
Pater (Latin for "Father of Our Country") was purchased by
Congress in 1832 for $2,000. It currently hangs in the Old Senate Chamber.[3]
Peale
went on to create over 70 detailed replicas, including one of Washington in
full military uniform that currently hangs in the Oval Office. Peale continued to paint other noted portraits, such as
those of the third president Thomas Jefferson while he was in office (1805),
and later on a portrait of Chief Justice John Marshall.
[edit]Travels
Noted
for his "itinerant" nature, Peale visited Europe several times to
study art (Ward). Throughout his life, Peale traveled across the Western
Hemisphere in search of inspiration and opportunities as an artist. His father
helped pay his way to Paris, where he stayed from June to September 1808, and
again from October 1809 to November 1810. In Paris, Peale studied the works
of Jacques Louis David, which influenced him to paint in the Neoclassical style.
He painted the famous explorer Alexander von
Humboldt and several other noted
patrons such as Joseph Louis
Gay-Lussac and François André
Michaux.
After
his successes in France, Peale returned to Philadelphia in 1810. His efforts to
establish his knowledge and mastery of art were displayed in his painting The
Roman Daughter (1812). The painting was deemed too “sensational” by
the people of Philadelphia,[4] who
were unsympathetic to his endeavors toward “improving the state of fine arts in
America” in the 19th century.[5] Amid
the economic hardship of the War of 1812, President Jefferson—who promised to buy the 1795 portrait
of Washington, but could not keep his promise—instead encouraged Peale to go to
Europe, as "we have genius among us but no unemployed wealth to reward
it".[6]
[edit]Peale's
Baltimore Museum
Motivated
by his father’s establishment of the American Museum of Philadelphia (1786) and having been unsuccessful in Philadelphia,
Rembrandt Peale assumed his father’s role in another city. On August 15, 1814,
Peale launched his first museum as soon as he arrived in the municipality
of Baltimore, Maryland. Originally premeditated as an Arts and Sciences museum,
Peale decided to display only works of art and manufactured products instead.
The
museum was elaborately illuminated by gas light,
following the example of his brother Rubens in
Philadelphia. This innovation made a great impression. Peale had acquired an
important gas lighting patent, and with some associates founded the
successful Gas Light Company of
Baltimore. Having poor business sense, though, he did little to manage the
company and was forced out after a few years due to the War of 1812.[7][8]
In
1828 an ambitious Peale raised funds and tried earning money for his previous
paintings, in order to travel to Rome. He took along his 15-year-old son,
Michael Angelo, a determined young artist who copied his father's paintings in
admiration.[9] Peale
successfully displayed portraits of Horatio Greenough and Patriæ Pater in Florence Academy.
Peale
died June 12, 1860 in Philadelphia.
[edit]Works
In
1801, Rembrandt painted a portrait of his brother Rubens,
youngest of the six Peale children, who always had an admiration for gardening
and tending to natural life. Rembrandt seated his brother next to a geranium.
The painting signifies the artist’s admiration for a sibling’s love of nature,
and may have been inspired by the Dutch 17th
century artist, David Teniers the Younger, who had painted a series of oil-on-copper
paintings representing the five senses. His painting, "Smell" is
quite similar to Rembrandt Peale’s. Rembrandt's piece captures the essence of a
young gardener/artist’s peace of mind, gracefully looking out, a posture of
wonder and calmness.[10]
In
1824 Peale painted the Patriæ Pater, in which a rectangle
supporting an oval wreath surrounds the eye-catching image of George
Washington. The most successful painting of Peale's 50-year career, it
inspired John Marshall to have his portrait done by Peale in the same
fashion. The painting was criticized as lacking authenticity, as it was not
completed until after Washington's death (1799). Nonetheless, Peale received
commendations for his portrait by many noted politicians such as Washington’s
nephew, Judge Bushrod Washington, who was an associate U.S. Supreme Court Justice, and
Marshall.[11]
Peale's
neoclassical painting The Roman Daughter depicts a young girl
shielding her father, a prisoner in chains, and feeding him from her breast.
This piece demonstrates compassion and graceful defense; his copy of Correggio's
Angel, and his immense allegorical painting, Court of Death (1820),
reveal the same artistic style.
[edit]Legacy
Rembrandt Peale completed over 600 paintings. He painted
portraits of many notable people, including American presidents George
Washington and Thomas Jefferson,[12] Chief Justice John Marshall,[13] and John C. Calhoun. His paintings are in many public
collections.
[edit]Collections
The following is a partial list of collections holding works
by Rembrandt Peale:
·
Washington,
D.C.: National Museum of
American Art and National Portrait
Gallery,
·
The Smithsonian Institution
·
Baltimore, Maryland: The Peale
Museum, Baltimore Museum of Art,
·
Atwater Kent Museum, Pennsylvania Academy
of Fine Arts
·
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: The
Historical Society of Pennsylvania,
·
Detroit, Michigan: Detroit Institute of Arts
·
Birmingham, Alabama: Birmingham Museum of Art
·
New York: Brooklyn Museum, The Peale
Museum of New York
·
New London, Connecticut: Lyman Allyn Art Museum
·
Dallas, Texas: The Dallas Museum of
Art Modern
American Collection
·
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: LaSalle
University Art Museum
·
New London, Connecticut: Lyman Allyn Art Museum
·
Dallas, Texas: The Dallas Museum of
Art Modern
American Collection
·
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: LaSalle
University Art Museum
Note 2) Peale's portraits of older
men, brought reasonably strong prices from 1994 to the present, from $12,000,
$16,800, $22,000 and $50,000, except with respect to Peale's self-portrait
and his portraits of George Washington and, which generally brought in excess
of $100,000, per Askart.com. The presale estimate of $8,000-$15,000 is a
reduced figure, because the name of |
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the
sitter is unknown and is reasonable and justifiable, given the Peale sales
records with regard to portraits of older men and Peale’s standing as one of
the best American portrait painters of the 19th century: Title/Subject:
Charles
Hodge Unsigned. Oil on canvas. 23.50 in. x 19.50 in. sold for $50,000
on 12/1/2011 at Sotheby’s, NY Title/Subject:
Colonel Henry Nichols Unsigned Oil on canvas. 30 in. x 25 in.
sold for $12,000 on 03/01/2006 at
Sotheby’s, NY Title/Subject:
Dr. George Darby Unsigned. Oil on canvas. 24 in. x 20 in.
sold for $16,800 on 1/20/2005 at Sotheby’s, NY
|