An A-Peale-ing Still Life

Born on this date in 1774, Raphaelle Peale was the eldest son of well-known artist Charles Willson Peale.

As the first of several Peale children to be named after an artist, Raphaelle lived under the burden of his father's high hopes for his artistic career that he was never able to fully satisfy. Raphaelle Peale's shining artistic legacy was his still life painting.

Americans were fascinated with the flowers and fruits of their new-found land. Such interest in the natural world stimulated a market for still-life paintings. This type of painting originated in seventeenth- and early-eighteenth-century Holland where merchants demonstrated their wealth through depictions of heavy-laden tables and exuberant floral displays. Raphaelle Peale's famous father—artist and entrepreneur Charles Willson Peale—would have been proud of this effort, titled Melons and Morning Glories.

This painting is part of Young America: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, which opens in Ohio at the Columbus Museum of Art on February 23, 2001.

Source: Amy Pastan. Young America: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (New York and Washington, D.C.: Watson-Guptill Publications, in cooperation with the Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2000).

Pictured: Raphaelle Peale, 1774–1825, Melons and Morning Glories, 1813, oil, 20 3/4 x 25 3/4 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Paul Mellon.