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Horatio Gates at Saratoga, by James Peale, c. 1800.
Oil on canvas. 36 1/8 x 26 3/4 in. (91.76 x 67.95 cm). Maryland Historical Society, Accession: 1890-2-1.
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John Greer, by James Peale, 1794. Watercolor on ivory. 2 1/8 x 1 5/8 in. (5.4 x 4.13 cm.) Maryland Historical Society, Accession: 1953-66-1.
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Susan Bayle Greer (Mrs. John Greer), by James Peale, 1797. Watercolor on ivory. 2 x 5 1/8 in. (5.08 x 13.02 cm.), Maryland Historical Society,Accession: 1953-66-2.
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Medium/Discipline: Painting
Birthplace: Chestertown, Kent County, Maryland
Maryland Affiliation: Born here, Depicts Maryland subjects, Active while in residence
Gender: Male
Biography: James Peale was the younger brother of Charles Willson Peale. Like his brother, James Peale passed down the tradition of painting to his children Anna Claypoole, who was a miniaturist, and Sarah Miriam Peale, an ivory and oil painter. James Peale made frames by trade, and began this business doing so for his brother's paintings; he also painted fabrics such as shawls which his children helped him to do.Charles Willson Peale taught James how to paint upon his return from London in 1769 where he had studied with Benjamin West. During the Revolution, James served as an officer in the Continental Army. He painted portraits and still-life at the outset of his career and then Charles turned over his own large miniature practice to him and during the 1790s and early 1800s he devoted himself to miniature painting. He later painted still life and landscapes and scholar Jean Woods has called him, "the forerunner of the American school of romantic landscape painting." (Woods, p. 4) A portrait of Washington by James Peale is in the collection of the New York Historical Society and another is in Independence Hall in Philadelphia. James painted a great deal in Maryland 1794 and 1803. The latter part of his life was spent in Philadelphia. He married Mary Claypoole, daughter of an artist, and had six children, four of whom were artists.
Selected References: Miller, Lillian B. The Peale Family: Creation of a Legacy 1770-1870. (Washington, D.C.: Abbeville Press), 1996.
Pleasants, J. Hall. Two Hundred and Fifty Years of Painting in Maryland (Baltimore: Baltimore Museum of Art), 1945.
Woods, Jean. Celebrating 350 Years: Nineteenth-Century Maryland Artists. (Hagerstown: Washington County Museum of Fine Arts exhibition April 1-29), 1984.
Maryland Institutions Holding Artworks: Baltimore Museum of Art; Maryland Historical Society; Walters Art Museum
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