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The Peales were a famous family of American artists.Charles Wilson Peale is best remembered for his portraits of leading figures of the American Revolution.He painted portraits of Franklin and Jefferson and over a dozen of George Washington.His life-size portrait was so realistic that George Washington reportedly once tipped his hat to the figures in the picture.
Charles Wilson Peale gave up painting in his middle age and devoted his life to the Peale museum, which he founded in Philadelphia.The world’s first popular museum of art and natural science mainly covered paintings by Peale and his family as well as displays of animals in their natural settings.Peale found the animals himself and found a method to make the exhibits more real.The museum’s most popular display was the skeleton(骷髅)of a huge, extinct elephant, which Peale unearthed on a New York farm in 1801.
Three of Peale’s seventeen children were also famous artists.Paphaelle Peale often painted still lives of flowers, fruit, and cheese.His brother Rembrandt studied under his father and painted portraits of many famous people, including one of George Washington.Another brother, Rubens Peale, painted mostly landscapes and portraits.
James Peale, the brother of Charles Wilson Peale, specialized in miniatures(小画像).His daughter Sarah Miriam Peale was probably the first professional female portrait painter in America.