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Charles Willson Peale

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Artist

The Resume

    (April 15, 1741-February 22, 1827)
    Born in Chester, Maryland
    Painted 1100 portraits
    Notable paintings include ‘George Washington at the Battle of Princeton’ (1781), ‘Staircase Group’ (1795), ‘Exhuming the First American Mastodon’ (1806) and ‘The Artist in His Museum’ (1822)
    Founded Peale’s American Museum in Philadelphia (1786)
    Museum holdings included over 100 stuffed mammals, 700 birds, 150 reptiles and amphibians, and hundreds of fossils (1800)

Why he might be annoying:

    He was given the middle name ‘Willson’ after a rich uncle from whom his dad hoped to win an inheritance. (It didn’t work.)
    He fled the state of Maryland to avoid debtor’s prison, leaving behind a wife and child (1764)
    In addition to the scientific specimens one would expect, his museum also displayed freaks of nature like a two-headed pig, a tree root resembling a human face, and black bugs that had allegedly lived in woman’s stomach.
    He developed a new taxidermy technique – that required using arsenic, which undermined his health.

Why he might not be annoying:

    His brush with debtor’s prison had been largely politically motivated: he belonged to a radical party that had just defeated the established Court Party. Most of the state’s lenders were members of the Court Party and they called in loans made to members of the opposition party for revenge.
    He raised troops for the American Revolution, rising to the rank of captain in the Pennsylvania militia.
    His ‘Staircase Group,’ a portrait of sons Raphaelle and Titian framed in an actual door jamb with a projecting bottom step, was so realistic that a visiting George Washington doffed his hat to the boys.
    He organized the first scientific expedition in the US (1801), which exhumed a mastodon skeleton that was mounted at his museum.
    His ‘Washington at Princeton’ sold for $21.3 million, setting a record for an American portrait (2005).

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 4 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 9 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 2 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 7 Votes: 71.43% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 4 Votes: 50.0% Annoying