Margaretta Angelica Peale
Margaretta Angelica Peale (1795-1882)
Margaretta Angelica Peale was the fifth of six children of painter James Peale and his wife, Mary Claypoole. Her sisters Anna Claypoole and Sarah Miriam were distinguished as portraitists, following in the footsteps of their uncle Charles Willson Peale and his son Rembrandt. Like her father and cousin Raphaelle, Margaretta focused on still life. Another sister, Maria, also painted still life, though Margaretta was the more famous.
Margaretta and her sisters received most of their training in their father's studio, at first grinding colors and preparing palettes and later assisting James with backgrounds and embellishing his portraits with embroidered shawls, laces, and other fine fabrics. Like most of the Peales, Margaretta exhibited--though only occasionally--at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. At the 1828 annual exhibition she showed "Still Life--Apples and Grapes (after James Peale)," in 1829 "Water Melon, Peaches, &c.," and in 1830 "Fruit." In 1836 and 1837 she showed a group of fruit pieces, most of which were for sale. She also exhibited a portrait of a lady in 1830, which the catalogue refers to as "the first portrait executed by the Artist." 1(1)
Margaretta never married and continued to paint until her death in Baltimore in 1882. She executed a few portraits of good quality, several of which are in the collection of George Washington University. Her obituary noted that “her superior talent in painting fruit has given her a high reputation in Philadelphia”2(2). Despite this acknowledged talent and her participation in large annual exhibitions, Margaretta is still considered an amateur artist. This evaluation may be partially due to a generally low appreciation for still life, which Americans never regarded as highly as portraiture or other genres. Moreover, less than fifteen still lifes by Margaretta's hand are known, though at least fifty are mentioned in records between 1820 and 1865.3(3) This small body of work makes it difficult, if not impossible, to get a sense of Margaretta's style or overall development.
“Melons and Pears”, 1830
Watercolor and gouache on paper, 15 7/8 x 20 ¾ in. (40.3 x 52.7 cm)
Signed and dated (lower right, in lip of platter): M.A.P. 30
Charles F. Smith Fund (1968.8)
Nearly all Margaretta's still lifes were executed in oil on canvas, using a format that did not exceed sixteen by twenty-one inches. “Melons and Pears” is the artist's only known watercolor. This medium is often associated with the amateur efforts produced by young schoolgirls and genteel ladies during the early nineteenth century. Produced with the aid of patterns and stencils called theorems, these works were often decorative but lacked three dimensionality. “Melons and Pears” shares the simple compositional style of these amateur watercolors in its spare background, yet Margaretta's arrangement is much more complicated, for it features a cucumber, two watermelons, a cantaloupe, four pears, and an apple, all ornamented with pear branches and grape leaves. In the best Peale tradition, which favored the realistic depiction of natural objects, her painting is highly detailed, from the pattern of dots along the rim of the platter, to the nubby texture of the cucumber and the dry variegated surface of the cantaloupe. Her modeling also exhibits a knowledge of light and shade, producing a sense of weight and depth not attainable, nor even desirable, in flat decorative theorem paintings.
MAS
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Wolfgang Born, "The Female Peales: The Art and Its Tradition," “American Collector” 15 (August 1946): 13-14; Charles Coleman Sellers, "Peale, Anna Claypoole, Margaretta Angelica, and Sarah Miriam," in Edward T. James, “Notable American Women”, 3 vols. (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1971), vol. 3, p. 39; Anna Sue Hirschorn, “Anna Claypoole, Margaretta, and Sarah Miriam Peale: Modes of Accomplishment and Fortune,” in Lillian B. Miller, ed., “The Peale Family: Creation of a Legacy, 1770-1870”, exhib. cat. (New York: Abbeville Press, 1996), pp. 220-47.
Notes:
1. Anna Wells Rutledge and Peter Hastings Falk, eds., “The Annual Exhibition Record of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts” (Madison: Sound ViewPress, 1988-89), vol. I, p.165.
2. Quoted in Sellers, “Peale, Anna Claypoole,” p.39.
3. Charlotte Rubenstein, American Woman Artists: From Early Indian Times to the Present (Boston:G.K.Hall,1984),p.64. In 1992 the Inventory of American Painting, National Museum of American Art, listed twelve still lifes, though one or more of these may be duplicate records.
