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Curious Revolutionaries: The Peales of Philadelphia

Peale's Philadelphia Museum

Copper Plate

Copper Plate for Printing Admission Tickets to the Philadelphia Museum

c. 1810
Engraved copper plate
Admission Ticket

The Philadelphia Museum Admission Ticket

Signed by Charles Willson Peale and Rubens Peale, 1814
Ink on paper
Amusement broadside

Amusement Here with Science is Combined

Charles Willson Peale, date unknown
Ink on paper
Scarlet Tanager (Piranga olivacea)

Scarlet Tanager (Piranga olivacea)

Titian Ramsay Peale II, 1820
Pencil and watercolor on paper
montule

Voyage en Amerique en Sicile et en Egypte

Edouard de Montule, 1821
Ink on paper
Silhouette Sheet

Silhouette Sheet

Moses Williams, c. 1802-1825
Cut paper on black paper
Fireplace Model

Fireplace Model

Charles Willson Peale, 1796-1797
Wood, paper, ink, and metal
Letter to Rembrandt Peale

Letter to Rembrandt Peale

Charles Willson Peale, 1810
Ink on paper
Draisiana

Draisiana, or Pedestrian's Hobby-Horse

Charles Willson Peale, undated
Ink on paper
Archaeological Collection Sheet

Archaeological Collection Sheet, No. 71 Mexico

Franklin Peale, dates unknown
Mixed media including ceramics mounted on wood, with wire, paper, and ink
Hyalophora cecropia

Hyalophora cecropia (silk moth)

Titian Ramsay Peale II, c. 1817
Pencil and watercolor on paper
Sketch of Taunoa, Tahiti

Sketch of Taunoa, Tahiti

Titian Ramsay Peale II, 1838-1842
Pencil on paper

Copper Plate for Printing Admission Tickets to the Philadelphia Museum

c. 1810
Engraved copper plate

In 1802, Peale expanded the museum into the State House (now Independence Hall), where it stayed until his death in 1827. Throughout the museum’s heyday, Peale made his business successful through innovation in advertising, sales, membership, and appeals to public curiosity.

APS.

Copper Plate

The Philadelphia Museum Admission Ticket

Signed by Charles Willson Peale and Rubens Peale, 1814
Ink on paper

The museum’s attractions included Peale’s menagerie of live animals (including two live grizzly bears he later shot and mounted in the museum), souvenir silhouettes, and “the great incognitum” (mastodon).

APS.

Admission Ticket

Amusement Here with Science is Combined

Charles Willson Peale, date unknown
Ink on paper

Peale’s museum combined science and spectacle. Peale hoped his museum would introduce Americans to the wonders of the natural world. As a  “world in miniature,” it served both to educate and entertain.

APS.

Amusement broadside

Scarlet Tanager (Piranga olivacea)

Titian Ramsay Peale II, 1820
Pencil and watercolor on paper

The Peales perfected techniques for collecting, preserving, and displaying their specimens. Birds--the most numerous of the collections--were skinned, cleaned, and stuffed with cotton. The Peales developed the technique of mounting them in small habitat dioramas.

APS.

Scarlet Tanager (Piranga olivacea)

Voyage en Amerique en Sicile et en Egypte

Edouard de Montule, 1821
Ink on paper

Thousands came to the museum to see Peale’s mastodon. The attraction was on par with other world wonders featured in travel books like this. Other pages show the Sphinx, Niagara Falls, and Pompeii.

APS.

Montule

Silhouette Sheet

Moses Williams, c. 1802-1825
Cut paper on black paper

In 1802, John Isaac Hawkins gave Peale his physiognotrace invention--a device for tracing profiles in miniature. Peale entrusted its operation to his slave, Moses Williams, who became particularly skilled at cutting intricate, accurate likenesses. 

Williams’s silhouettes became popular souvenirs for museum visitors. As many as 8,000 visitors bought them at 8 cents apiece each year. Once freed, Williams married the family’s white cook and used his profits to buy a two-story house.

APS. Peale-Sellers Family Collection.

Silhouette Sheet

Fireplace Model

Charles Willson Peale, 1796-1797
Wood, paper, ink, and metal

In May 1796, the American Philosophical Society launched a contest for the improvement of fireplaces. Peale and his sons submitted five models, won the competition (they ran unopposed), and were granted a U.S. patent for their designs.

The models built on previous designs by Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Thompson, and David Rittenhouse, who had experimented with safe and efficient heating technologies. Peale installed “smoke-eaters”-- fuel-efficient, smoke-free, and decorative fireplaces--in his Philadelphia Museum.

fireplace

Letter to Rembrandt Peale

Charles Willson Peale, 1810
Ink on paper

Inspired by his friend, Thomas Jefferson, Peale retired as a gentleman farmer to his country estate, Belfield. Here Peale describes the property and the house, now part of the La Salle University campus in historic Germantown, PA.

APS. Peale-Sellers Family Collection.

Letter to Rembrandt Peale

Draisiana, or Pedestrian's Hobby-Horse

Charles Willson Peale, undated
Ink on paper

Baron von Drais invented the bicycle’s precursor---the draisiana---a “fast walking machine” propelled by foot. Upon hearing about the invention, Peale made his own to coast around Belfield and surrounding Germantown. Soon after, the city forbade “fast walking.”

APS. Peale-Sellers Family Collection.

Draisiana

Archaeological Collection Sheet, No. 71 Mexico

Franklin Peale, dates unknown
Mixed media including ceramics mounted on wood, with wire, paper, and ink

By 1819, the collections included some 800 “Indian costumes and artifacts.” Some were from contemporary Indigenous people. Others were from the ancient past. Franklin Peale, with his interest in mechanics, collected tools, many from the Delaware Water Gap and some from prominent collectors.

His wife, Caroline, was also a collector. She posthumously published his collections catalogue and donated the objects to the Society.

APS.

Archaeological Collection Sheet

Hyalophora cecropia (silk moth)

Titian Ramsay Peale II, c. 1817
Pencil and watercolor on paper

Titian Ramsay Peale II combined his father’s love of art, science, and technology in his work as a naturalist. As a collector, Titian designed two-sided, protective, storage boxes for his butterfly and moth collections. As a scientific illustrator, he used new technologies such as the camera lucida, and later, photography, to accurately depict the natural world.

APS.

Hyalophora cecropia

Sketch of Taunoa, Tahiti

Titian Ramsay Peale II, 1838-1842
Pencil on paper

The U.S. South Seas Exploring Expedition (1838-1842), headed by Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, was launched by the federal government to explore unfamiliar corners of the globe and establish a far-reaching American presence.

Titian Ramsay Peale II and a team of nine scientists accompanied the other 346 men on six ships. They collected, sketched, and gathered information on over 60,000 plant and animal specimens.

APS.

Sketch of Taunoa, Tahiti
  • PreviousThe Peales and the New Nation
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Phone: 215-440-3400

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Phone: 215-440-3400

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