Part of starting a new nation is making noble the founding fathers. Both what they learned from the home country and what they resolved to make better. Then this all must be chronicled so that future generations know what they are a part of. Charles Wilson Peale was an exemplar of all that and an example that the many new nations of the post war period would have been wise to study. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
I mentioned that new countries might have been wise to study the example of Charles Wilson Peale. This stamp I am afraid does not offer much of an introduction to him. The printing quality of American stamps of the 1950s is really quite bad. Below is the painting the image on the stamp was taken from. It is easy to see how much was lost in the translation.
Todays stamp is issue A511, a three cent stamp issued by the United States on January 15th, 1955. It was a single stamp issue celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, to whom Peale founded an early variant of. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether used or unused.
Charles Wilson Peale was born in modest circumstances in Maryland in 1841. He apprenticed and later worked making horse saddles. He was not a success in this but discovered within him a talent for painting, especially of portraits. He received instruction locally from John Hesseling and was able to travel to England pre revolution to study with Benjamín West. Returning to the American colonies he became a member of the Sons of Liberty. He also passed on his knowledge to students including his brother James and many of his children. He had 16 children many of whom he named after famous artists. His son Raphaelle Peale was a noted still life artist. Even slave Moses Williams received training in cutting silhouettes and when given his freedom, stayed on at the Museum selling silhouettes to customers.
Peale was most famous for his oil portraits of American founding fathers, including over 50 portraits of George Washington. The most famous of these, “Washington at Princeton”, sold in 2005 for $21.5 million dollars. Peale also had an interest in the natural world and taxidermy. This lead to Peale founding his Museum. He developed a relationship with a museum in London where he would exchange stuffed birds from North America for birds from Europe. At the time there was a friendly debate between Thomas Jefferson and French naturalist the Comte de Bufron as to whether North America or Europe had greater biodiversity. When Peale’s Museum displayed the stuffed remains of a mastodon, the display made quite a sensation, with Jefferson maintaining that the beast still existed in the far north.
The business of maintaining the Peale Museum and the connected Academy of Fine Art was difficult as there were not enough visitors and Peale was unable to secure government subsidies. Moses Williams lost his house as his commissions dried up. Soon after Peale’s death in 1827 the collection was sold to P. T. Barnum and broken up. The current Academy of Fine Arts was reestablished later by former students of Peale.
Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast Charles Wilson Peale. I will have to be a short one since I cannot afford one of Peale’s portraits. Perhaps one of Moses Williams silhouettes? Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2019.