THE PEALES, A FAMILY OF PAINTERS
BENJAMIN WEST
By Sir Thomas Lawrence, the English portrait painter.
Charles Willson Peale’s fame is almost wholly derived from his portraits of Washington, of which he painted fourteen from life, extending in time from 1772 to 1795. His earliest shows Washington in the uniform of a British Colonial colonel, and is now in the possession of Washington and Lee University.
Washington is known to have sat forty-four times to various painters. Based on these comparatively few sittings have been more portrayals on canvas than have been accorded to any man in history, with the possible exception of Napoleon. A collection of engraved portraits of him has been made which included over four thousand plates. Rembrandt Peale, a son of Charles Willson Peale, contributed a cumulative fame to the name, as he also painted Washington, as well as Jefferson, Dolly Madison, and other political and social leaders. He, as well as his father and his uncle, James Peale, all worked at times in miniature. In the work of father and son there was little merit, little invention, but a creditable craftsmanship. They recorded the appearance of the people of their day with uninspired fluency.
KING LEAR
By Benjamin West, in Boston Museum of Fine Arts.