History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884, Part 45

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898. cn; Westcott, Thompson, 1820-1888, joint author
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : L. H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 992

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Martin Archer Shee, in his "Elements of Art," says of West, " Posterity will see him in his merits as well as his defects ; will regard him as a great artist, whose powers place him high in the scale of elevated art; whose pencil has maintained with dignity the historic pretensions of his age, and whose best com- positions would do honor to any school or country."

Benjamin West died on the 11th of March, 1820, aged eighty-two years. His beloved wife, Elizabeth Shewell, who fifty-five years before had crossed the ocean, under the protection of his father, to keep her plighted troth,-the then young artist being unable to leave London,-had left him a widower in 1817. From that moment his strength had begun to fail, though his mental faculties remained unimpaired to the last. "He was buried beside Reynolds, Opie, and Barry in St. Paul's Cathedral. The pall was borne by noblemen, ambassadors, and academicians; his two sons and grandson were chief mourners, and sixty coaches brought up the splendid procession." 1

Cosmo Alexander, an old Scotch painter who visited this country some years before the Revolution, travel- ing for his health, and who, it is said, "painted for his amusement," is supposed to have been in Phila- delphia about 1770-71. A portrait of John Ross seated in his library, with a table near him,-the property of J. Meredith Read,-was painted by this artist. Alexander was in Newport, R. I., in 1772, and taking a fancy for Gilbert Stuart, then a mere boy, gave him lessons in painting, and on leaving Newport took him with him to South Carolina, and thence to Scotland.

1728. John Meng, from early boyhood, had evinced a decided vocation for the painter's art. He was gifted by nature with artistic tastes, and soon acquired no little skill with the pencil and brush. But the practical old German, his father, did not approve of his sou's choice of a profession. This opposition made things unpleasant for John ; moreover, he felt that he must have better tuition than he could get in Philadelphia. He left home and went to the West Indies. He was probably not there more than a year or two, and died about 1754. He was only twenty years old. A very fairly painted portrait of himself, done in oil, was in possession of Charles S. Ogden, who also had the following works of John Meng: A por- trait of his father, Christopher Meng, half size; a portrait of a lady, full length, name unknown, which was commenced in the West Indies, but which was left unfinished. These pictures are upon canvas. A likeness of Meng, painted upon pasteboard, is also preserved. There is reason to believe that there are other pictures by this early Philadelphia artist in the possession of old Germantown families.

Dunlap mentions James Claypoole as a painter in Philadelphia in 1756, and the instructor of Matthew Pratt, from whom he ( Pratt)" learned all the different branches of the painting business, particularly por- trait-painting, which was his particular study from ten years of age."

This is all we know about Claypoole, who may have been a very good instructor. His pupil, however, acquired both fame and substance. Matthew Pratt was born in Philadelphia, Sept. 23, 1734. He was the son of a goldsmith, and having shown some disposition for painting was apprenticed, in 1794, to Claypoole, who was in all probability a sign-painter. Having served his apprenticeship, Pratt gave his attention to portrait-painting, while not refusing to paint pictorial signs for taverns or stores. Many of those signs, in the execution of which the hand of the true artist was recognizable, have been described in our chapter on Inns and Taverns. In 1760, Matthew Pratt married

1 Dunlap's History of the Arts of Design.

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Elizabeth, daughter of Charles Moore, of Philadel- phia. Loving his art, and feeling that to perfect himself in it he must have better instruction than he could obtain at home, he went to England in 1764. There he met Benjamin West, and made arrangements to study with him. He practiced his profession for some time in Bristol, and finally returned to Phila- delphia in 1768. He opened a studio at the corner of Front and Pine Streets, and being well known, had no lack of employment. He, however, again crossed the sea in 1770, and went to Ireland, where he painted a full-length portrait of Rev. Archdeacon Mann in his canonicals. This picture was put on exhibition .with the collection of the Dublin Society of Artists, and received much praise. Pratt remained abroad only a few months, and returned to Philadelphia in the same year.

At some time before the Revolution he painted a life-size portrait of Governor Hamilton, a copy of which is now in the possession of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. But portraits were prob- ably not so much in demand as picturesque signs, and Pratt had acquired much fame in this branch of his art. There were not then, as there are now, wealthy amateurs, ready to pay hundreds or thousands for a good picture. Patronage did not go much beyond the ordering of a few family portraits. Private col- lections were rare, although Dunlap states that Gov- ernor Hamilton possessed a collection of pictures, among which was a St. Ignatius, by Murillo. The true artist will not be content with reproducing on canvas the venerable wrinkles of paterfamilias or the rosy cheeks of the incipient belle; he must needs give play to his fancy, and give shape and color to some of the conceptions of his brain. In the age of pictorial signs the street became his picture-gallery, where he could exhibit his works. The tavern- keeper, perhaps, if his patrons approved of it, con- gratulated himself upon having made a good bargain when he paid a few extra dollars to the painter of that sign, but the stranger with artistic eye pass- ing by paused to look more carefully at the painted piece of board, and, as in the case of Pratt's "Cock in a Barnyard," which for many years graced a beer- honse in Spruce Street, recognized the hand of a master. He was, indeed, no mean artist who painted that other remarkable sign, "The Convention of 1787," with its number of likenesses so life-like, which caused crowds of admiring people to assemble at the corner of Fourth and Chestnut Streets, where it was first put up. Pratt had given proof of his skill and artistic taste as a decorative painter when, in 1785, he executed the paintings for the grand hall in which the Chevalier de la Luzerne gave his bril- liant fête in celebration of the birth of the dauphin of France. The national symbols, the allegorical groups, and mythological figures were so well ex- ecuted, and the coloring and disposition of the figures formed a harmonious whole so pleasing to the

eye that they elicited the warm commendation of the chevalier, certainly a good judge in such matters.

Matthew Pratt ended a well-spent life on the 9th of January, 1805. He was then in his seventy-first year. He was the father of Henry Pratt, merchant, well known in his time as the owner of Pratt's Gardens, at Lemon Hill, and of Thomas Pratt, who died some years ago at an advanced age.

John Singleton Copley, of Boston, probably visited Philadelphia, and painted some portraits there before | he went to England. He was in New York some time previous to his departure, and might well have made an excursion to Pennsylvania. At all events, a fine portrait of William Plumsted, mayor of Philadel- phia, painted by this artist after the year 1750, is in the possession of Mayor Pinmsted's descendants. Dunlap mentions the painter Woolaston as having painted portraits in Philadelphia in 1758, and in Maryland in 1759-60. Francis Hopkinson published some verses in praise of Woolaston in the American Magazine for September, 1758. Bernard Wilton, an English artist, was in Philadelphia in 1760. He was engaged prin- cipally, it seems, in sign-painting. His claims to fame consist in the painting of a fine sign represent- ing a bull's head for a tavern in Strawberry Alley, which sign, from its superior execution, was for many years attributed to Benjamin West.

Henry Bembridge was born in Philadelphia in 1750, of wealthy parents, who encouraged his taste for art. While yet a youth, he painted the panels of a room in his father's house with historical designs, executed with so much skill as to attract attention. He went to Rome in 1770, and studied there for some time under Pompeio Battoni and Mengs. On his re- turn to America, about 1774, he settled in Charleston, S. C. He came back to Philadelphia some time after- ward, and married a Miss Sage. Several small pictures of Commodore Truxton and family are attributed to Bembridge, whose son had married a daughter of the commodore. According to Mr. Dunlap, Bembridge died in Philadelphia "in obscurity and poverty." The same author states that James Peale, a brotber of Charles Wilson Peale, painted miniatures and oil portraits in Philadelphia, about 1775.

Charles Wilson Peale, the versatile genius who, without attaining the fame of West, yet did more toward spreading a taste for art in Philadelphia than any other painter, was born at Chestertown, Md., April 16, 1741. He was bound apprentice to a sad- dler in Annapolis while quite a young lad, and served his term of apprenticeship; but his active, inquiring mind would not permit him to devote his whole at- tention to one trade ; from making saddles he got to making carriages, then he took to making clocks and watches. IIe had a natural facility for all kinds of mechanical employment, and if anything suggestive caught his attention he was ever ready to investigate and imitate it. Thus, having gone to Norfolk on some business, he casually saw the paintings of a Mr.

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Frazier, and was struck with the sudden idea that he might do as well, although he had had no greater ex- perience in painting than he might have acquired in his trade of coach-making. The result of this idea, which was a true revelation, was that on his return home the young tradesman shut himself up with canvas, brush, and colors, and a looking-glass, and succeeded in painting a portrait of himself. From that day Peale was a painter. He went to Philadel- phia and made purchases of materials for portrait- painting and books of instruction in the limner's art. Hesselius, who about this time had settled in Annap- olis, gave him some valuable advice. In 1768-69 the young painter made a voyage to Boston, where he met Copley, already successful as a portrait-painter, who kindly permitted him to copy one of his pictures and otherwise encouraged him. On his return home, Peale had decided that a voyage to England was in- dispensable if he wished to acquire a proper knowl- edge of the art and to merit the name of painter. Sev- eral gentlemen of An- napolis, interested in the young man, made up a subscription, and raised a sum sufficient for the car- rying out of his views, the loan to be paid back in portraits. Peale, leaving his young wife and family, - he had married before he was twenty-one,-pro- ceeded to London. He had a little money, a great deal of confidence and determi- nation, and some letters of introduction to West. He remained in London from 1770 to 1774, studying with West, who kindly invited him to his house when his funds were exhausted. Not satisfied with studying painting while in London, Peale found time to learn modeling in wax, moulding and casting in plaster, painting in miniature, and en- graving in mezzotinto.

Peale returned to Annapolis in 1774; but Phila- delphia presented a wider field, and there he took up his abode in 1776. The times were unpropitious for the arts, and, besides, the artist was also a patriot ; he was elected a captain of volunteers, joined Washı- ington, and fought gallantly at the battles of Trenton and Germantown. Yet the sword had not banished the pencil, and while the captain of volunteers did his duty manfully, the artist found time to paint the likeness of his brother-officers. These portraits were

Clu Pea le

the foundation of the gallery of national portraits, which was to be the principal feature in "Peale's Museum" after the war. He preserved on canvas the features of the most illustrious participants in the Revolutionary war. Washington he painted re- peatedly. Rembrandt Peale says that the first por- trait of Washington, at the age of forty-one years, was painted at Mount Vernon in 1772, by Charles Wilson Peale, who also executed others in 1778, 1781, 1783, 1786, 1795. Peale painted a portrait of Wash- ington for the State of Pennsylvania in 1779. It was placed in the Council chamber in the State-House. In 1781 some persons unknown broke into the Council chamber, and defaced and totally destroyed the pic-, ture. While sitting for one of these portraits (a miniature for his wife), Washington received dis- patches communicating the news of the surrender of Burgoyne. One of the best and most famous of Peale's portraits of Wash- ington was painted in the building of the Ameri- can Philosophical Society, Fifth Street, below Chest- nut. It was painted by re- quest of a committee of Congress, then sitting in Philadelphia. By the time the picture was finished some discussion had taken place in Congress about the price agreed upon by their committee, -eight thou- sand dollars,-which, it was held by some mem- bers, was more than the country could afford to pay for a picture. Mr. Peale declined to deliver the picture, and hung it up in his museum. In Au- gust, 1780, the following advertisement was published in the Pennsylvania Packet :

" The subscriber takes the liberty of informing the public that he has just published a mezzotint print in poster size (fourteen by ten, beside margin) of his Excellency, General Washington, from the original pic- inre belonging to the State of Pennsylvania. Shopkeepers and persoos going to the West Indies may be supplied at such a price as will afford them a considerable profit, by applying at the southwest corner of Lom- bard and Third Streets, Philadelphia.

" CHARLES WILSON PEALE.

" N.B .- As the first impressions of this sort of print are the most valuable, those who are anxious to possess a likeness of our worthy general are desired to apply immediately."

This was certainly the first instance of mezzotint engraving in Philadelphia. The picture thus repro- duced represents the general in uniform, leaning on a

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ART AND ARTISTS.

field-piece taken at Princeton, with the British pris- oners in the background.

Peale painted, with great industry, soldiers, states- men, philosophers, and eminent foreigners who visited America. His portrait of Benjamin Franklin was engraved, and was for a long time the accepted like- ness of that eminent man. A very fine full-length of Gerard, first minister from France to the United States, was elaborate and finely finished. In his eighty-second year Peale painted a fine full-length portrait of himself,-a picture handsomely executed, representing a museum scene in the background, which was striking in the management of the subject. 1

Peale's portrait of Jefferson-engraved by Aiken & Harrison, Jr .- is perhaps the hest likeness of that statesman ever executed. Portraits of John Paul Jones, Peyton Randolph, Rittenhouse, and John Dickinson,-executed in 1773,-and of Timothy Mat- ack and many others remain to attest the industry and skill of this artist.

In the winter of 1818-19 he made a trip to Wash- ngton City for the special purpose of painting the portraits of some of the distinguished men of that period. He returned with fifteen likenesses. Among hem were portraits of President James Monroe, Vice- President Daniel D. Tompkins, Gen. Andrew Jack- son, Col. Richard M. Johnson, John Quincy Adams, John C. Calhoun, and Henry Clay. These were added o the collection in the museum. Mr. Peale was at his time in the seventy-eighth year of his age. In is eighty-first year he painted "Christ Healing the Sick at the Pool of Bethesda." It was of large size -eight feet by six feet three inches.

In the year 1791, Mr. Peale attempted to form an association as an Academy of Fine Arts in Philadel- phia, but failed to get a sufficient number of artists o carry out his project. Another attempt made three years later met with no better success. In 1809 he vas very active in promoting the association known Is " The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts," bout which Benjamin West, in a letter to Charles W. Peale, expressed his satisfaction at the establish- nent of an academy in Philadelphia "for cultivating he art of delineation." Mr. Peale died in Philadel- hia, Feb. 27, 1827, at the age of eighty-five, active und industrious to the last. He was certainly a man of uncommon gifts, and would have attained greater ame as a painter had he concentrated in the culti- ation of one art the wonderful energies wasted in so many different pursuits. Yet, taking in consideration is surroundings, the difficulties which beset him, he troubled condition of the country during those years of his manhood which should have been the golden period for peaceful and serious study, and above all the condition of American art at that time, t must be conceded that he achieved more than could have been expected of any man. Mr. Dunlap will not admit of a comparison between Peale and West; he recognizes "sublime genius" in the latter,

while the "genius" of the former "was devoted to making money." West was a truly great artist, but supposing him to be in Peale's place, taking up art when he had reached manhood and had a family to support, serving his country in the field and in its counsels,-for Peale's biographer says he represented Philadelphia in the Pennsylvania Legislature in 1779,-then, instead of having royal patrons to reward and encourage his talent, having to create a taste for art in a community scarcely recovering from a long war, it is doubtful if Mr. West would have become famous. Had Peale gone to Rome to study, had he found protectors and remained in Europe, devoting his whole energy to his art, who can tell what the result would have been ? As it was, the duties of the man and patriot crippled the genius of the artist, but his works show that this genius did exist. Whether or not fame grants it a niche in her sanctuary, the name of Peale will live in Philadelphia, and be ever mentioned with gratitude. He published an essay on " Building Wooden Bridges" in 1797, "Lectures on Natural History" in 1800, "Preservation of Health" and "Domestic Happiness" in 1813, " Address to the Corporation of Philadelphia" in 1816, and " Economy of Fuel" in Transactions of the American Philosophical Society.

Mr. Peale had several children, and he gave to most of them the names of famous painters. He was an enthusiast in art, and probably cherished the fond idea that the boys he named Raphael, Rembrandt, Vandyke, Titian, and Rubens would some day attain the fame of their great patrons, and his eldest daugh- ter become a second Angelica Kaufman. But Raphael and Rembrandt were the only ones who adopted the artist's profession. Rembrandt, born in Bucks County, Pa., Feb. 22, 1778, showed artistic dispositions at a very early age; he commenced drawing at the age of eight years, and at thirteen left school to devote him- self to art. He studied and worked with his father, and acquired no little skill at portrait-painting. Washington sat to him in 1795. In 1796, Charles Wilson Peale relinquished portrait-painting in favor of his son Rembrandt, who was then only eighteen years old. In 1800, Rembrandt Peale decided to abandon his surname, and published the following curious advertisement in the newspapers :

REMBRANDT.

The use of names being merely to distinguish individuals, and whereas few persone discriminate between the peculiar names of my father, uncle, brother, or myself, which creates a confneion disadvanta- geons to the distinct merit of each as an artist, I am induced to obviate this laconvenience on my part in being known only by my first name, Rembrandt, the adjunct Peale serving only to show of whom descended. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen desirone of viewing a few specimens of my style of painting may find me by the following direction :

REMBRANOT, Portrait painter in large and emall,

head of Mulberry Conrt, leading from Sixth, three doors above Market Street."

The experiment could not have been a very satis- factory one, for Rembrandt, not very long after this,

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HISTORY OF PHILADELPHIA.

removed to Charleston, S. C. From that eity he pro- ceeded to London, where he placed himself under the guidance of Benjamin West, and studied diligently to improve in his art. From London he went to Paris, and after a short stay in that gay capital re- turned to Philadelphia in 1804. He paid another visit to Paris in 1807, for the purpose of painting the portraits of some of the celebrated characters of the time. Among the likenesses which he brought back to Philadelphia and exhibited at the museum in 1808 were those of the famous naturalist and French aca- demician, Baron Cuvier; Abbé Hauy, the learned mineralogist ; Bernardin de Saint-Pierre; the traveler, Denon; and the great sculptor, Houdon. He also painted the portraits of Count Rumford and Gen. Armstrong. But Rembrandt had not devoted so much time to the study of the masterpieces in the London and Paris galleries for the mere purpose of improving his skill as a portrait-painter ; in 1812 he exhibited " The Roman Daughter," a much-admired picture ; this was followed by the " Ascent of Elijah," and in 1820 by his grand composition, "The Court of Death," the subject of which was suggested to his mind by Bishop Porteus' poem on " Death."

The idea which governed the artist was thus de- seribed in the pamphlet published for the use of persons who visited the picture :

" The picture of 'The Court of Death' is an appeal to the public taste by a native artist. It is an attempt to introduce pure and natural alle- gory (or rather painting by metaphor) in the place of obsolete personifica- tion and obscure symbols. It is a demonstration of the science of paint- ing applied to its noblest purpose, -- the expression of moral sentiment. It is a discourse on 'Life and Death,' equally interesting to all ages and classes, delivered in the universal language of Nature-the eloquence of the painter's art-which speaks not by the slow progression of words; and is calculated to remove the misconceptions of prejudices and terror, and to render useful the rational contemplation of death.

"The most impressive iden of death was excited by the appearance of a dead body which received the strongest ray of light in the picture. It was the body of a man in the prime of life by some accident rendered lifeless. The power of death was personified as an attribute of Deity 'by an antique form coeval with mian,' the head representing the Egyp- tian feature, the form one of strength and power, covered with massive drapery, and seated on a shroud. On the right hand was a group ex- pressive of War, in which were represented allegorical figures of Want, Dread, Desolation, the Warrior and his Victim, and Infant and its Mother. Pleasure, Youth, Remorse, and Suicide occupy another group. In another group were the victims of luxury and intemperate pleasures, -Gout, Dropsy, Apoplexy, Hypochondria, Fever. and Consumption. In the centre was Old Age supported by Virtue."

Rembrandt gives an interesting account of how he obtained the models for the figures in this picture :

" My good and venerable father stood ns the representative of Old Age, modified by the antique bust of Homer. One of my danghters stood in place of Virtue, Religion, and Hope ; and another knelt to the attitude of Pleasure, I borrowing a countenance from imagination. My friend and critic, John Neal, of Portland, impersonated the Warrior, be- neath whom a friend consented to sink to the earth in distress, and thue appeared na a mother of a naked child, which I painted from my then youngest danghter. The corpse was the joint result of a study from the subject of a medical college and the assistance of my brother Franklin, lying prostrate with inverted head, which was made a likeness of Mr. Smith, founder of the Baltimore Hospital. My brother also, though of irreproachable temperance, stood for the Inebriated Youth. My wife and others served to fill up the background @It may be worth while to mention that for the figure of Famine following In the train of War I could find no model, though I sought her in many a haunt of misery, and

I therefore drew her from my brain ; but, strange to say, two weeks after the picture was finished, a woman passed my window who might have been sworn to as the original."

The canvas of this picture was twenty-four feet in length, thirteen feet high, and it contained twenty- three figures, larger than life.

In June, 1824, Rembrandt Peale exhibited his equestrian portrait of Washington in the old Apollo- dorean Gallery, on Swanwick Street. In the notice of the picture, in December, 1824, it was said that " Washington is represented seated on horseback, in the midst of a group of mounted officers, Lafayette, Knox, Lincoln, and Rochambeau. He is in the act of giving an order relative to the opening of the trenches before Yorktown."

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History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884, Part 45

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898. cn; Westcott, Thompson, 1820-1888, joint author Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : L. H. Everts & Co. Number of Pages: 992

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898. cn; Westcott, Thompson, 1820-1888, joint author
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : L. H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 992