Charles Willson Peale, Hudson River Sketchbook
1801
(1 vol., 22 sketches)

B P31.8d

© American Philosophical Society
105 South Fifth Street * Philadelphia, PA 19106-3386
 American Philosophical Society 105 South Fifth Street Philadelphia, PA 19106-3386
Table of contents Abstract
During his 1801 journey to John Masten's farm to purchase the skeleton of a mastodon, Charles Willson Peale made seventeen finished and three unfinished sketches of the scenery along the Hudson River in the vicinity of West Point, Fort Clinton, and Fort Putnam. Most of the sketches were completed in watercolor during or shortly after the voyage, and include views of Slaughter Landing, Verplank's Point, Stony Point, Dunderberg or Thunder Hill, Haverstraw Bay, Anthony's Nose, and several of West Point.
Background note
On June 18, 1801, Charles Willson Peale and Rembrandt Peale boarded the sloop Priscilla in New York City, bound up the Hudson River for Newburg. Their destination was the Orange County farm of John Masten where the bones of a mastodon were being exhumed -- the mastodon that the Peales purchased and installed as the most popular attraction in their Philadelphia Museum.

During the voyage to Masten's farm, Peale was overwhelmed by the scenery and began sketching furiously. In a letter to Andrew Ellicott, July 12, 1801, he wrote:

The grand scenes presented in our passage through the high lands, so enraptured me that I would, if I could, have made drawings with both hands at the same Instant, and the rapidity of our sailing with a fair wind and atide rendered more rapid by the confinement of mountains, permitted me only to make hasty sketches, these to the number of 17 views of the most striking and interesting by the events of the late war. I retouched them on my return, and I hope to finish more correctly in my next trip.

Between June 19 and 23, Peale made approximately twenty sketches in pencil and sepia ink, and completing them at a later date in watercolor. Nine of the paintings sprawl across facing pages, eight were complete on a single page. He also made three other drawings, one of the Palisades, and two of unidentified scenes, that were never completed.


Scope and content
Charles Willson Peale's Hudson River Sketchbook is a graphic record of the journey to unearth the mastodon skeleton that became the centerpiece of Peale's Philadelphia Museum. The sketchbook includes seventeen watercolor paintings (nine of which span facing pages) and three unfinished sketches in pencil and ink

The original album is inscribed from Charles Willson Peale to Titian Ramsay Peale, June 1822, and includes brief notes on the mastodon bones, apparently enumerating the bones that had been excavated.

During the early twentieth century, the sketches were removed from their original binding and laid individually into paper frames before being rebound. The new binding is in blue full-leather with a polychrome morning glory design embossed on the cover, and prints of Charles Willson Peale's portrait of Titian Ramsay Peale (with facsimile signature) and an engraving of Rembrandt Peale's portrait of Charles Willson Peale were inserted at the front. The order of the images as listed below follows their order in the rebound volume.

Administrative information
Restrictions
None.

Provenance
An inscription inside the front cover reads "Sketches by CW Peale taken 1801, presented to TRP, June 1822." Acquired by the APS, 1957.

Preferred citation
Cite as: Charles Willson Peale, Hudson River Sketchbook, American Philosophical Society.

Processing information
Recatalogued by rsc, 2002.

Additional information
Related material
The APS also houses sketchbooks of James Peale and Titian Ramsay Peale, and the diaries of Charles Willson Peale that cover the period during which this trip was made.

References
Sellers, Charles Coleman, Charles Willson Peale With Patron and Populace. APS Transactions 59, 3 (1969), see pp.33-34.

Added entries
Subjects
  • Anthony's Nose (N.Y.)--Pictorial works
  • Dunderberg (N.Y.)--Pictorial works
  • Fort Clinton (N.Y.)--Pictorial works
  • Fort Putnam (N.Y.)--Pictorial works
  • Haverstraw Bay (N.Y.)--Pictorial works
  • Hudson River (N.Y. and N.J.)--Pictorial works
  • Mastodon
  • Peale, Titian Ramsay, 1799-1885
  • Slaughter Landing (N.Y.)--Pictorial works
  • Stony Point (N.Y.)--Pictorial works
  • Verplancks Point (N.Y.)--Pictorial works
  • West Point (N.Y.)--Pictorial works

    • Contributors
  • Peale, Charles Willson, 1741-1827

    • Genre terms
  • Watercolor paintings

    		•
    Contact information
    American Philosophical Society
    105 South Fifth Street
    Philadelphia, PA 19106-3386
    [http://www.amphilsoc.org/]

    ©2002


    Detailed inventory

    		 Hudson River Sketchbook
    		3 lin. feet

    		1. Palisades (ink and pencil) June 1801 Ink sketch; 19.6 x 15.7 cm.

    		Caption "a yellow," identifying the color of a landslide in the center distance.

    		2. "View up the Hudson about 8 miles above new york" June 19, 1801 Ink and watercolor; 19.6 x 15.7 cm.

    		Diary, June 19: "the wind became fair &... we... enjoyed a very agreeable run with flowing sheets, passing a variety ogf the elegant country seats which adorn New York Island -- with also the pleasing sight of a small fleet of sloops and some schooners gliding up the stream. When we had got opposite Mr.Depeysters having the heights where fort Lee & fort Washington formerly stood, in view, the banks of the Jersey shore being lofty and steep, strike the fancy with solemnity by its awful shades, the sun being now in the West, only glanced over its top in the vale below fort Lee."

    		3. "New Yels Landing" June 1801 Ink and watercolor; 19.6 x 15.7 cm.

    		Caption: "thick fog almost obscured the top."

    		4. "down the river in the Vessel opposite slaughter's landing" June 20, 1801 Ink and watercolor; 19.6 x 15.7 cm.

    		Caption: "House & vessel Slaughter's landing" and, at mountain top, "fog."
    Diary, June 20: "opposite Slaughter's landing a little below Haverstraw-bay, here I make a sketch of the View, the high lands on the left were steep and covered with woods, the top of which was covered with clous of smoke."



    		5. "Verplanks point, sailing up the river" June 22, 1801 Ink and watercolor; 19.6 x 15.7 cm.

    		Diary, June 22: "The next sketch was with Verplanks point on my right and a stupendious mountain directly in front -- after this the Tunder Hill so called..."

    		6. "Stoney-Point after having passed it, going up the river" June 1801 Ink and watercolor; 19.6 x 15.7 cm.

    		Over facing pages.
    "NB, The Western Shore. A. between these hills Genl. Wayne advanced when he took the Fort by surprize. b. the Fort."
    Caption, over fort: "b"; below: "Rocks"; at right "a" and "distant."

    		7. "The leaving of Verplanks point, sailing up the river" June 1801 Ink and watercolor; 19.6 x 15.7 cm.




    		8. "Stony-point as you approach it from Haverstraw bay" June 1801 Ink and watercolor; 19.6 x 15.7 cm.




    		9. "Dunderberg -- or Thunder hill, going up the River" June 1801 Ink and watercolor; 19.6 x 15.7 cm.

    		Over facing pages.
    Caption: "3 hollow behind; 4 ridge & road;" (in clearing below the mountain) "road;" at right "x Fort Independence."

    		10. "View of the passage through the high lands, sailing up the north River" June 22, 1801 Ink and watercolor; 19.6 x 15.7 cm.

    		Over facing pages.
    Caption: "a. Anthony's-Nose" and (against the face of the mountain at right) "a."
    Diary, June 22: "I was enchanted with the sight of such stupendious mountains, the greater part of which was covered with woods and here & there projecting a great rock, but in some places we see almost perpendicular walls of them, with Trees and shrubery growing from their crevices -- and some times, the driping water besparkaling the front. The bluye cast shewed thin distance, yet their magnitude always deceived the eye and we always thought them much nearer to us than they realy were. I remember that when Antony-nose, was pointed out to me and I was told it was 4 miles distnat I could scarcely believe it, altho' its colour partook considerably of the azure..."

    		11. "After passing Anthony-nose. The first appearance of Sugar loaf Hill" June 1801 Ink and watercolor; 19.6 x 15.7 cm.

    		Over facing pages.
    Caption: on shore at right, "marsh."

    		12. "Sugar loaf mountain near west point" June 1801 Ink and watercolor; 19.6 x 15.7 cm.

    		Over facing pages.
    Caption: "x Robinson's Farm, now Dennings, where Arnold was when he heard that Major André was taken under the fained name of Anderson."

    		13. "View from West-point up the River" June 1801 Ink and watercolor; 19.6 x 15.7 cm.

    		Over facing pages.

    		14. "View from [West Point looking Toward Fort Putnam]" June 22, 1801 Ink and watercolor; 19.6 x 15.7 cm.

    		Caption: "grass"
    Diary, June 22: "In the afternoon Captain Flemming conducted me up the mountain to Fort Putnam, a spot judiciously taken to cover the Works of west Point. The prospect was sublime, and awful grandeur seized the mind while viewing the steep declivity... From this we descended a short distance & traversing the side of Fort Putnam seperated from us by a deep valley covered with Trees, and on the right a View of Newburg thro' a Gap in the Mountains... A drawing I made from this spot concluded the labours of this day."

    		15. No image



    		16. View of West Point from the side of the mountain June 23, 1801 Ink and watercolor; 19.6 x 15.7 cm.

    		Over facing pages.
    Diary, June 23: "Willing to make the best use of my time, I sought another view in which I might comprise the Greater part of the building of west point. This I also cloured -- & the execution thereof consumed the whole afternoon."

    		17. View from the lower end of Newberg down the River June 26, 1801 Ink and watercolor; 19.6 x 15.7 cm.

    		Caption: on side of mountain at left, "profile," and over larger mountain at right "Butter Hill."
    Diary, June 26: "To fill up the measure of my time I made a drawing of the View down the river in which West point is seen through the Mountains, Butter hill being a fine object on the right & the hill with the profile of a human face on the left."

    		18. Fort Putnam and West point June 1801 Ink and watercolor; 19.6 x 15.7 cm.

    		Caption: "Fort Clinton."

    		19. Unidentified view up the river June 1801 Pencil sketch, 19.6 x 15.7 cm.

    		Over facing pages.
    Caption: on side of hill "Rocks."

    		20. Unidentified June 1801 Pencil and ink sketch, 19.6 x 15.7 cm.

    		Pencil sketch facing the watercolor painting numbered 20, possibly originally part of the same.

    		20. West point & Fort Putnam sailing up the River June 1801 Ink and watercolor; 19.6 x 15.7 cm.

    		Caption: lower center, "Fort Clinton."