Sarah Miriam Peale

Sarah Miriam Peale (1800-1885)

Sarah Miriam Peale was a leading portrait painter of Baltimore and Saint Louis. Frequently referred to as one of America's first truly professional female artists, she supported herself with great success for sixty years. While many of the Peales were quite capable, if not professional painters, Sarah, along with her sister Anna, was the only woman among them to achieve such high distinction in the field.

Born in Philadelphia, Sarah was the youngest of six children of James and Mary Claypoole Peale. James, the brother of the famous colonial painter Charles Willson Peale, was also a noted portraitist and still-life painter. Like Charles, whose sons Rembrandt and Raphaelle would also achieve success as painters, James raised his children in his studio. Along with her elder sisters, Anna Claypoole and Margaretta Angelica, who would later become noted miniature and still-life painters, respectively, Sarah began by mixing paints, preparing canvases, and delineating backgrounds, details, and decorative areas of her father's canvases before striking out on her own.

Not much information is available on Sarah’s early career, but clearly her development was rapid, if not astonishing. She exhibited often at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where her work received positive reviews from the critics. Her uncle Charles was continually supportive as was the well-known Philadelphia portraitist Thomas Sully, who invited Sarah and Anna to accompany him and his daughters (who were also painters) to anatomy lectures. The most significant influence for Sarah was probably her cousin Rembrandt, who was a nationally known portraitist and with whom she studied during several extended stays in Baltimore in 1818, 1819, and 1820.

By 1820 Sarah was often occupied with portrait commissions in Baltimore. She exhibited at the Peale Museum, which mounted annual painting shows starting in 1822, and by 1825 she maintained a studio at the museum. It is not clear when she moved to Baltimore permanently, for several years she worked both there and in Philadelphia. In 1824 both Sarah and Anna were elected academicians at the Pennsylvania Academy, quite an honor considering their gender and youth, yet not entirely inappropriate for an artist embarking on a career as Baltimore's most popular portraitist.

Sarah, who never married, continued to work with her sister. The two often shared patrons, Sarah painting in oil and Anna in miniature. Sarah painted over one hundred portraits of Baltimore society, more than any of her competitors. About 1841 she made several trips to Washington, D.C. to paint distinguished statesmen and congressional leaders, among them Secretary of State Daniel Webster, Secretary of the Navy Abel P. Upshur, and Senators William R. King, Caleb Cushing, and Thomas Hart Benton. In 1847 she moved to Saint Louis, where she painted and taught; for the next thirty-two years she was the leading portraitist in that city. As age advanced, she gave up much of her work in portraiture and turned to still life. In 1878 she returned to Philadelphia, where she lived with her sisters Anna and Margaretta and painted until her death.

Mrs. Charles Ridgely Carroll (Rebecca Ann Pue), ca. 1822

Oil on canvas, 29 x 24 1/4 in. (73.7 x 61.6 cm)

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Vose in memory of Sanford Low (1964.56)

Mrs. Charles Ridgely Carroll (1801-1851), one of Sarah Peale's earliest Baltimore patrons, was the daughter of Mary Ridgely Buchanan and Dr. Arthur Pue, a well-known physician of Anne Arundel (now Howard) County. Newly married couples often ordered matching or single portraits to decorate their new house and to commemorate their marriage; this portrait was likely painted around 1822, the year Rebecca Pue married Charles Ridgely Carroll (1800-1870) of Baltimore. (1) A miniature portrait of Rebecca by Louis Antoine Collas, dated 1819, may have been painted on the occasion of the couple's betrothal. (2) Rebecca Pue Carroll had eleven children before her death in 1851; her portrait was kept in the family for more than one hundred years.

The portrait is an excellent example of Peale's early style. The subdued background of warm blush and beige tones presents a characteristic foil for the artist's interest in bolder colors, seen here in the deep bluish green velvet and ermine-trimmed cape and in the cape's bright yellow lining. Like Rebecca Carroll, many of Peale's sitters wear garments about their shoulders; the artist was fond of both the velvet and fur cape and the colorful Indian shawl popular during the 1830s and 1840s. The half-length format and the three-quarter profile were also standard in her work.

Not surprisingly, Sarah Peale’s style is reminiscent of that of the older members of the Peale family, the thoughtful pose and charming demeanor of her sitter, as well as the insistence on draftsmanship and skillfully rendered flesh tones, are found in the portraits of Charles Willson Peale. Sarah's study with Rembrandt Peale is evident in her concern for expressive color and obvious delight in rendering fabric, furs, and delicate laces.

MAS

Bibliography:

Wilbur H. Hunter and John Mahey, “Miss Sarah Miriam Peale, 1800-1885: Portraits and Still Life”, exhib. cat. (Baltimore: Peale Museum, 1967); Beverly Berghaus Chico, "Two American Firsts: Sarah Peale, Portrait Painter, and John Neal, Critic," “Maryland Historical Magazine” 71 (fall 1976): 349-59; Lillian B. Miller, ed., “The Selected Papers of Charles Willson Peale and His Family”, 3 vols. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983); Anna Sue Hirschorn, “Anna Claypoole, Margaretta, and Sarah Miriam Peale: Modes of Accomplishment and Fortune,” 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. For biographical information on the sitter, see Frick Art Reference Library, New York, photograph archives no. 3273. Additional genealogical information provided by Grace L. Grogaard, Library Assistant, Maryland Historical Society, letter, November 25, 1994, NBMAA curatorial files.

2. Whereabouts unknown; see Frick Art Reference Library, photograph archive no. 5187.