Raphaelle Peale
Raphaelle Peale (1774-1825)
Like most of the children of the famous colonial painter and scientist Charles Willson Peale, Raphaelle followed in his father's footsteps. He assisted his father in the establishment of his natural history museum, traveling to South America to collect specimens and developing techniques for preserving, mounting, and exhibiting displays. He wrote papers on the efficient use of stoves and fireplaces, patented a process for protecting ships' bottoms and pilings from marine worms, published a theory of the universe, and developed recipes for conserving specimens at the Peale Museum.
Notwithstanding these frequent forays into science, Raphaelle's primary occupation was art. As a boy, he learned oil and miniature portraiture in his father's Philadelphia studio. Later, when Charles retired from his portrait career in 1794, he referred his clients to both his sons, Raphaelle and Rembrandt. Raphael betrayed an early interest in still life; Rembrandt would go on to national fame as a portraitist and history painter. At times reluctantly, Raphaelle painted portraits and miniatures throughout his career, knowing that portraiture was the profitable artistic pursuit of his day. It was only after 1810, however, that he increasingly began to focus on still life.
As the first American still-life painter of note, Peale is known for his small jewel-like panels of cakes, fruits, vegetables, and other tabletop arrangements. Although his total output is estimated at more than 150 still lifes, only about one-third of these works are known today. During his lifetime Raphaelle's still lifes were critically acclaimed and were purchased by several influential collectors. However, because portraits were by far the most desirable form of oil painting, he rarely sold a still life for more than tewnty-five dollars.
Perhaps the greatest setback to Raphaelle's career was his declining health. After 1798 the artist experienced frequent and increasingly severe attacks of illness that affected his stomach and made his hands swell. The exact cause, whether gout, drink, or metal poisoning, is a matter of scholarly debate. During these periods he was unable to travel on portrait commissions or undertake the strenuous work needed to paint portraits and entertain sitters and could not devote his full attention to his still lifes. Raphaelle died unexpectedly at the peak of his career in 1825.
Bowl of Peaches, 1816
Oil on panel, 12 5/8 x 19 1/4 in. (32.1 x 48.9 cm)
Signed and dated (lower right): Raphäel Peale Septr 1816.
Harriet Russell Stanley Fund (1961.1)
The New Britain painting exemplifies Raphaelle's refined and beautifully painted compositions. The subject is simply a large bowl of peaches ornamented by two sprigs one placed diagonally atop the pile of fruit and another on the table directly in front of the bowl. (1) Placed in the middle of a bare marble table against a dark background, Raphaelle's arrangement is stable and symmetrically ordered. He often limited his combinations to one or two types of fruit placed inside delicate pieces of imported porcelain or china, unlike his uncle James, who favored copious arrays of fruit spilling out of bowls and onto the table.
With their expensive imported items: porcelain baskets, fine glassware and silverware and rich cakes and desserts, Raphaelle's still lifes may be seen as reflections of the stable middle-class life and the ordered home environment enjoyed by Philadelphia’s merchant class. They represent the private domestic life of the Peale family and of the collectors who purchased their works. The openwork porcelain basket in “Bowl of Peaches” is a favorite accessory that appears in several paintings of the same year, including “Still Life with Celery and Wine” (1816; Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute Museum of Art, Utica, N.Y.) and “Basket of Peaches with Fruit Knife and Grapes” (1816; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven), as well as in several still-life arrangements by Rubens and James Peale.
Raphaelle's fruit presentations also record the era's horticultural developments. Philadelphia was a center for art and science during the early nineteenth century, and the Peale family participated in related activities. Charles Willson Peale's rural estate of Belfield, which he purchased in 1810, was certainly the source of many of the fruits Raphaelle depicted. Raphaelle's fruits are often arranged in the manner of botanical illustrations; the colors of the varieties are accurate and the branches and leaves are included to further confirm identification. Furthermore, the meticulously dated legends on some of the paintings, such as the inscription on the New Britain work, indicate Raphaelle's interest in scientific precision and may even indicate the dates the fruits came into season. (2)
Like this panel, a great number of Raphaelle's still lifes feature fruits: apples, grapes, oranges, blackberries, and watermelons are common. Peaches are a favorite throughout Raphaelle's career, especially about 1816. In a letter to his patron, Charles Graff, he expresses his intentions to devote all his time to the painting of "fine Peaches" and watermelon slices. (3) Although he expected his illness would prohibit him from carrying out his plans, his condition must have improved measurably soon after this letter, for he was able to complete several arrangements featuring peaches. Six of these were shown at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where he regularly exhibited. Dated September 1816, “Bowl of Peaches” may be the painting shown in October 1816 as "Fruit, Still Life, Peaches." Raphaelle also may have shown the work at the larger exhibition the next spring. (4)
MAS
Bibliography:
John I. H. Baur, "The Peales and the Development of American Still Life," “Art Quarterly 3” (winter 1940): 81-92; Charles Coleman Sellers, “Raphaelle Peale (1774-1825): Still Lifes and Portraits”, exhib. cat. (New York: Milwaukee Art Center and M. Knoedler, 1959); Lillian B. Miller, Sidney Hart, and David C. Ward, eds., “The Selected Papers of Charles Willson Peale and His Family”, 4 vols. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983-91); Nicolai Cikovsky Jr. et al., “Raphaelle Peale Still Lifes”, exhib. cat. (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1988); Phoebe Lloyd, "Philadelphia Story," “Art in America” 76 (November 1988): 155-70, 195-98, 200-202; Lillian B. Miller, ed., “The Peale Family: Creation of a Legacy, 1770-1870”, exhib. cat. (New York: Abbeville Press, 1996).
NOTES:
1. The arrangement echoes that of “Peaches and Unripe Grapes” (1815; private collection, ill. in Cikovsky et al., “Raphaelle Peale Still Lifes”, p. 17.
2. Lloyd, “Philadelphia Story,” p. 161.
3. Peale to Charles Graff, September 6, 1816, quoted in Miller, Hart, and Ward, “Selected Papers”, vol. 3, “The Belfield Farm Years, 1810-1820”, pp. 447-48.
4. Peter Hastings Falk ed., “The Annual Exhibition Record of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1807-1870, Being a Reprint with Revisions of the 1955 Edition of Anna Wells Rutledge, ‘Cumulative Record of the Exhibition Catalogues’”, (Madison, Conn.: Sound View Press, 1988), p. 166.
