The son of portraitist Charles Willson Peale, Rembrandt Peale and his siblings were educated by their father and often trained through spending hours copying portraits first created by their famous father. While much of his career continued in the foot steps of his father, he travelled to Europe and published essays on art. Peale reached acclaim through his own original portrait of George Washington that he painted over two decades after the death of the first president.
Rembrandt Peale's First Portrait of Washington
Born on February 22, 1778, Rembrandt Peale shared his birthday with Washington, who was a popular subject of his father. Washington again posed for Charles Willson Peale while in Philadelphia attending the Constitutional Convention. Relying on their long association, Peale approached Washington on his son's behalf in 1795, and the President agreed to three sittings of three hours each, from seven to ten in the morning.
By the time Washington arrived for the first sitting, it was agreed that Charles Willson Peale would provide a reassuring presence, sparing Rembrandt Peale the need to talk and paint at the same time. Rembrandt Peale's life study revealed an aging George Washington of sixty-three who’s firmly set mouth and skeptical eyes gave his expression a somewhat dour cast.
The young artist succeeded in capturing the grandeur of his subject. After the third and final sitting with Washington in 1795, Rembrandt Peale hurried off to Charleston, South Carolina, where he made at least ten copies of his portrait.
Rembrandt Peale’s Second Portrait of Washington
Although he successfully painted Washington before his death in 1799, Peale was haunted by his desire to present a more grandiose image of Washington than his previous. Peale knew that the man he had painted in 1795 was aged by the presidency and was no longer the commanding presence of the years of the Revolution in which his father had first painted him.
Peale was determined to create a likeness of Washington that would transcend representational accuracy, to convey the heroic qualities that Washington produced in the minds of many Americans. It was this ideal Washington that Peale felt he had fallen short of in each new portrait he attempted. Peale's family began to believe him obsessed, perhaps dangerously so and his father told him bluntly that the task was impossible.
In 1823, Peale decided to make one last effort to capture how he perceived Washington. Peale was inspired by many different sources, including the works of his father and the bust portrait by Jean-Antoine Houdon. What Peale created, however, was something quite different, an image of Washington that was as much icon as likeness. Peale painted Washington in bust pose, facing left and framed by the massive stone oval that gave rise to the title "Porthole" portrait. Beyond the subject's head and shoulders drifted the clouds of some republican Olympus.
For weeks following the completion of the portrait in 1824, Peale's studio was crowded with hundreds of visitors eager for a glimpse of what was already said to be a remarkably faithful likeness of George Washington. The artist himself was anxious to solicit the opinions of men who had actually known Washington and soon collected a series of glowing endorsements that he later copied into his memoir, including from Washington's nephew Bushrod Washington and Chief Justice John Marshall. Jefferson lauded Peale’s work, writing, “with his native genius, his experience and his philosophical view of what was wanting to compose a moral, as well as physical, portrait of that great man, I have no doubt of the superlative excellence of his work.”1 In 1832, Peale sold the original Porthole portrait to Congress for the significant sum of two thousand dollars. It still hangs today in the old Senate Chamber of the United States Capitol.
Rembrandt Peale’s Legacy
Although highly regarded for his second portrait of Washington, he also had prior success painting figures such as Thomas Jefferson and completing naturalist works earlier in the nineteenth century. John Marshall, so inspired by his second portrait of Washington, commissioned Peale for one of himself. However, it was difficult to find wealthy patrons in the United States. The extended Peale family continued artistic pursuits, and Rembrandt was involved in his family’s ongoing museum projects. He is remembered through his neoclassical style that differentiated his work from his father’s. He died in October of 1860.
Updated by Zoie Horecny, Ph.D., 2 May 2025
Notes:
1. “From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 15 February 1824,” Founders Online, National Archives.
Bibliography:
Howard, Hugh. The Painter's Chair: George Washington and the Making of American Art. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2009.
Miller, Lillian B., Carol Eaton Hevner. In Pursuit of Fame: Rembrandt Peale, 1778-1860. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1992
