Digital mock-up (December 2021)
West on the Walls: The 1807 Exhibition of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Charles Willson Peale’s annotated sketch communicates important information about the design of the exhibition and the space of the rotunda. Peale included the sketch in a letter to Robert Fulton on November 15, 1807 to illustrate the installation of Fulton’s collection at the Academy. The image documents an installation in progress—and thereby offers a vivid, but incomplete, representation of the 1807 exhibition. Peale added more paintings to the walls after drawing the diagram. Fulton drafted a promotional essay, printed in Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser and other publications, that provided a full list of all works of art in the exhibition.[1] This interactive feature explores aspects of the installation that Peale’s sketch visualizes as well as what it leaves out. Further details about the exhibition room, such as a green floor cloth, are noted in other period documents and discussed in the article.
Visitors to the exhibition moved from south to north along the west wall of the exhibition room to view the paintings. This interactive section follows the same order, using Peale’s annotations to explore identified paintings in Fulton’s collection plus works that Peale added to the exhibition. Engravings are substituted for lost works and highlighted in grey. (Robert Smirke’s paintings [letter G] and Raphael West’s Orlando [letter I] are unlocated.)
Peale’s sketch and annotations referenced three works that remain unidentified. They are also mentioned in Fulton’s promotional account of the exhibition, printed by Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser (Nov. 26, 1807) and other newspapers and periodicals. Information here expands on research published in Lillian Miller et al., eds., The Selected Papers of Charles Willson Peale and his Family (1988), vol. 2, part 2, 1047.
Robert Fulton’s promotional essay noted the inclusion of at least six additional paintings from his collection. Peale did not illustrate these works in his sketch; it is possible that he intended to place them in the “space left to put others which I shall place tomorrow.”[19] He mentioned just one of these paintings, an “Adam & Eve,” in his Nov. 15, 1807 letter to Fulton. Information here expands on research published in Lillian Miller et al., eds., The Selected Papers of Charles Willson Peale and his Family (1988), vol. 2, part 2, 1047.
Click to learn more information about these paintings, most of which remain unidentified or unlocated.
This comparison of Peale’s sketch and the 3D reconstruction shows how Peale brought the exhibition to life on the Academy walls. The pairing reveals how Peale used doorways, panels, and other architectural elements to help organize the installation—and also how he concealed certain aspects of the architecture in his sketch. Unlocated and/or unidentified paintings are marked in grey in the reconstruction.
The uncropped panoramic reconstruction can be found here [link to be added].
1 Peale’s sketch represents his second effort at arranging the exhibition room. He experimented with the east side of the rotunda before settling on the west half for the installation. His numbered sketch organized the paintings from left to right. Visitors entered the exhibition room through the “Front Door” at the southern point of the building, progressing north along the west wall. Inside, they encountered an elegant neoclassical rotunda. It was one of the largest and brightest public spaces in Philadelphia: illuminated by a skylight, the room measured an impressive 46 feet wide and rose 18 feet from the floor to the base of the dome. Peale’s sketch indicates that he chose a sizable biblical scene from Fulton’s collection for the introductory wall, Antonia Balestra’s Death of Abel (c. 1701-1704).
2 Peale installed portraits over the two side doors in the western half of the rotunda: Benjamin West’s self-portrait (labeled “[B]W” in the sketch), placed over the southwestern door, and his own portrait of the Academy’s president George Clymer (labeled “14”), over the northwestern door. Each doorway opened onto rooms or stairwells in the corners of the building. By locating these paintings over passageways, Peale gave visual priority to the individuals represented in the portraits, reminding viewers of their significance to the Academy.
3 Absent in Peale’s drawing is a third recess that was located between “Lear” and “Ophelia.” Peale inaccurately represented the space between the two doorways as one continuous wall. A description of the rotunda in the Port-Folio (1809) suggests that two walls (or “pedestals”) occupied this space, separated by an ornamental recess.[2] West’s paintings of King Lear and Ophelia were probably too wide for these pedestals. Peale must have installed them so that they extended over the recess, meeting at the center. His sketch elides the awkward fact of this installation.
4 Peale added a double line and noted “G Baise” in the right margin of his sketch, denoting the location of a stanchion to hold a green baize curtain that he described in his letter to Fulton. Vertical lines suggest the hanging of this felt-like cloth. Matching lines on the left margin of the sketch and the barely-visible letters “Baise” show that he also installed a curtain at the south side of the room. Peale explained to Fulton that the curtain was six feet tall and bisected the spacious rotunda, thereby providing an appropriate “distance for viewing the Paintings,” together with a table in the center of the room.[3] Peale probably moved the plaster casts and busts that ordinarily occupied the exhibition room behind the baize curtain to maintain viewers’ focus on the paintings.
5 Peale’s sketch prominently featured eleven paintings by Robert Smirke. Fulton had commissioned these paintings—and engravings after them—as illustrations for Joel Barlow’s poem The Columbiad (1807). When Peale shared his installation plan, Fulton replied with concern, worrying that “the effect of Mr. Smirks delicate paintings may be diminished if Suspended under the bold works of Mr. West.”[4] Fulton encouraged Peale to consider “whether it is not best to hang them by themselves and about eye high with this inscription:
From Mr. Barlows Columbiad
Fulton even sketched a counter-proposal for the eleven paintings with one picture placed above two symmetrical rows of five canvases each. It is unknown whether or not Peale adjusted his design to satisfy Fulton.
6 This inscription beneath the square labeled “Abel” marks the area where Peale intended to add more paintings after hanging most of Fulton’s collection. These included portraits of Joel Barlow and Charles Stanhope, both painted by Fulton; a canvas Peale referenced as “Adam and Eve”; three genre scenes by Netherlandish artists named in Fulton’s promotional essay for the exhibition; and an unknown number of paintings contributed by a local Dutch merchant. Peale provided no further clues regarding his placement of these paintings, and it is possible he found places for them elsewhere on the west walls of the room. (For additional information about these works, see the Appendix).
Elsewhere, Peale’s letters offer insights about his design choices. Peale wrote to Fulton that his installation followed the European exhibition practice of hanging major paintings “on the line,” meaning the sight line of viewers of average height, “inclining a little forward, about 4, 5, or 6 feet from the floor.”[5] He created visual balance by putting large paintings on adjacent walls and placing small paintings around and beneath them in the mode of academic Salons.
A Antonio Balestra’s Death of Abel was one of several European paintings included in Fulton’s collection and illustrated in Peale’s sketch for the exhibition. Balestra (1666–1740), an Italian painter, depicted the famous biblical story in which Abel is killed by his brother Cain. Together with other paintings by Continental artists, Balestra’s work underscored the transatlantic efforts that brought Fulton’s collection to Philadelphia. It was one of the first pictures encountered by visitors entering the Academy’s front doors, presenting a dramatic introduction. It also served the Academy’s educational purposes by encouraging visitors to “contemplate and understand the beauty and excellence of art,” as the Port-Folio suggested in 1809.[6] Death of Abel remained at the Academy after the 1807 exhibition. In later Academy exhibition catalogs, the work is attributed to Johann Karl Loth and listed as part of the 1811 exhibition (the painting was deaccessioned in 1989).
B Benjamin West pauses while completing a portrait of his wife, who appears to engage the eye of the viewer. He wears a painter’s robe, referencing his role as a president of the Royal Academy of Arts in London. West gave the painting to Robert Fulton in gratitude for his patronage.
At the exhibition, West’s self-portrait stood in for the absent artist, reinforcing his association with the Academy. West was appointed an honorary member in 1806 and optimistically predicted that Philadelphia would become “the Athens of the Western World.”[7] Peale installed the self-portrait prominently above the left door in the southwest area of the rotunda, next to West’s portrait of Fulton. He placed a portrait of the Academy’s president, George Clymer, over another door in the room, creating a visual and spatial link between two figures central to the institution.
C Although best known today for his invention of the steamboat Clermont, Robert Fulton originally aspired to be a painter. He sailed to England in 1786 in hopes of studying with West and maintained connections to a transatlantic community of artists long after turning to science. West portrayed Fulton in elegant dress and referenced his engineering prowess by depicting torpedoes exploding in the background. Fulton had acquired West’s large Shakespearean paintings from the Boydell Gallery in London, and his collection formed the basis of the Academy’s 1807 exhibition.
Peale placed Fulton’s portrait adjacent to West’s self-portrait, underlining the connections between them. Although both men were physically absent from the exhibition, Peale’s installation gave them a tangible presence, cementing their roles as patrons of the Academy.
D Rembrandt Peale depicts his brother Rubens, a botanist and manager of the Philadelphia Museum, in the act of nurturing a geranium. The informal style of the portrait communicates the family’s collaboration on various projects, including art and natural history. Rembrandt assisted his father with exhuming mastodon skeletons in New York; Rubens painted still lifes. Charles Willson Peale’s inclusion of this portrait in the 1807 exhibition served to connect his family visually with Benjamin West and Robert Fulton, linking his sons to a transatlantic network of prominent individuals. He also implicitly visualized the importance of his own museum—and thereby appealed to Joel Barlow, Fulton’s patron and friend, who hoped to develop a national university including an art museum.
E King Lear was a key painting in Peale’s exhibition plan. Its central placement next to Ophelia underscored West’s connection to the establishment of the Academy. A Pennsylvania native who rose to become the president of Britain’s Royal Academy of Arts, West was credited with inspiring generations of American artists who trained in his London studio.
King Lear was originally exhibited in John Boydell’s (1719-1804) Shakespeare Gallery in Pall-Mall together with West’s Hamlet: Act IV, Scene V (Ophelia and Laertes). As described in Boydell’s catalogue, West represented the play’s climatic heath scene, when Lear struggles through a storm, tearing off his clothing and uttering the famous lines, “Off off you lendings: --come, unbutton here.” Fulton purchased King Lear after Boydell closed his gallery and auctioned the paintings.[8] In Philadelphia, the painting’s significance was transformed for American audiences: together with Ophelia, it was cast as the foundation for a new American school of art.
King Lear was celebrated in Joel Barlow’s poem, The Columbiad (1807), which Fulton helped to produce. The epic poem was printed in Philadelphia shortly before the Academy exhibition, preparing the way for the reception of West’s paintings. Fulton further promoted King Lear in an essay he provided to local papers.[9] Additional versions of King Lear at the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Rhode Island School of Design attest to the work’s popularity. Rembrandt Peale also made a copy of King Lear that he exhibited at his Baltimore Museum in 1814.
Peale and Fulton unsuccessfully lobbied the Academy to purchase West’s paintings, which remained on display for nine years at the Academy. In 1818, Fulton’s widow sent King Lear to New York for exhibition at the American Academy of Fine Arts. It was subsequently sold and acquired by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.[10]
F West’s second Shakespeare painting drew from the play Hamlet, picturing Ophelia, Hamlet’s ill-fated lover, who takes her life after mistakenly believing Hamlet to be dead. In this scene, Ophelia appears in a confused state before the Danish king and queen, speaking incoherently and scattering flowers as her brother Laertes appeals heavenward for an explanation of her behavior. West painted the work for Boydell’s Shakespeare Gallery in London. Boydell reproduced it in a folio of engravings published in 1803. After the closure of the Shakespeare Gallery, Fulton acquired Ophelia together with King Lear.
Peale complemented the painting, telling Fulton, “The Pic[ture] of Ophelia is an admirable Work, it fixes the attention of the beholders more the other, yet both are in a grand Stile of composition and finely painted.”[11] Paired with King Lear, Ophelia demonstrated the potential of ambitious history painting to Philadelphia audiences. Fulton emphasized their significance: “These two paintings are in the true style of classick composition, and while they excite the highest respect for the talents of the artist, they reflect great honour on the genius of our country, they are of themselves a basis for forming a good taste in our new school of art.”[12]
G Robert Fulton commissioned the British artist Robert Smirke to paint eleven scenes from The Columbiad. He also arranged for British and Italian engravers to reproduce them for the publication. In gratitude, Barlow dedicated the poem to Fulton. The whereabouts of the original paintings are unknown: after the 1807 exhibition, they went either to the American Academy of Fine Arts in New York or to Fulton’s heirs. At least three of Smirke’s paintings featured in an auction of Samuel L.M. Barlow’s (1826-1889) collection in 1890 at the American Art Galleries.[13] Here, the engravings substitute for the unlocated paintings. Use the right arrow button to view the engravings in sequential order.
1. Robert Smirke (artist) and Ankar Smith (engraver), Hesper Appearing to Columbus in Prison, ca. 1805-6
2. Robert Smirke (artist) and Bromley (engraver), Capac and Oella Instructing the Peruvians in Agriculture and Spinning, ca. 1805-6
3. Robert Smirke (artist) and Parker & Goulding (engraver), Zamor Killed by Capac, ca. 1805-6
4. Robert Smirke (artist) and Luigi Schiavonetti (engraver), Inquisition, ca. 1805-6
5. Robert Smirke (artist) and Robert Cromek (engraver), Cesar Passing the Rubicon, ca. 1805-6
6. Robert Smirke (artist) and James Neagle (engraver), Cruelty Presiding Over the Prison Ship, ca. 1805-6
7. Robert Smirke (artist) and Ankar Smith (engraver), The Murder of Lucinda, ca. 1805-6
8. Robert Smirke (artist) and by James Heath, corrected by Goulding (engraver), Cornwallis Resigning his Sword to Washington, ca. 1805-6
9. Robert Smirke (artist) and Abraham Raimbach (engraver), The Rape of the Golden Fleece, ca. 1805-6
10. Robert Smirke (artist) and Abraham Raimbach (engraver), Initiation to the Mysteries of Isis, ca. 1805-6
11. Robert Smirke (artist) and Goulding (engraver), The Final Resignation of Prejudices, ca. 1805-6
H Charles Willson Peale painted George Clymer (1739-1813), the Academy’s first president, and located his portrait prominently above a door in the exhibition room. Clymer was a politician and a signer of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. When the Academy opened in spring 1807, he delivered an inaugural address expounding on the future of American art and the city’s prominence as a cultural center. Peale’s inclusion of Clymer’s portrait in the exhibition also showcased his own artistic abilities and contributions as an Academy director.
I Raphael West (1769-1850), son of Benjamin West, painted the third Boydell Gallery work included in the Academy exhibition, a scene from Shakespeare’s comedy As You Like It. Unlocated, it is represented here by William Wilson’s engraving. Raphael West was trained by his father and often depicted Shakespearean subjects. Fulton praised the work: “This picture has something very original—it approaches to the style of Salvator Rosa, is well imagined, finely drawn and boldly executed. On examining it we have to lament that the world is not in possession of more of the works of this gentleman, for his genius is certainly of the highest order.”[14] The painting was later exhibited at the American Academy of Fine Arts in New York together with other works from Fulton’s collection. It was sold at auction in 1828 and again the next year in London together with a large sale of Benjamin West’s pictures.[15]
No. 12 Peale installed a work identified as “Pynacker” below King Lear and Ophelia. Fulton called the work Angel Appearing to the Shepherds, “a charming work for effect and transparency.”[16] The artist was probably Adam Pynacker (1622–1673). A work by Pynacker in the collection of The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco bears a title closely resembling Fulton’s description: Annunciation to the Shepherds (ca. 1640, oil on panel).
No. 13 Peale’s letter to Fulton labeled a work by “Ravenstein” as number 13, and the corresponding detail in his sketch included a facial profile. Fulton described it as a Portrait of an Old Man by “Ravintine,” “curious for its high finish.”[17] The artist was probably Jan van Ravestyn (1572–1657), a seventeenth-century Dutch artist known as a portraitist.
No. 16 Peale queried Fulton: “Wouvermans?”[18] The work appeared as number 16, located beneath Ophelia. It does not appear in Fulton’s account. The artist may have been Philip Wouwerman (1619–1668), a Dutch painter known for landscapes and scenes of peasant life.
Works Not Illustrated in Peale’s Sketch
Skalkin, The Troubadour
Fulton’s account of the exhibition referenced three works by Netherlandish artists in his collection, none of which Peale noted in his sketch or letter. No information on a period artist named Skalkin has been located, though this may have been a misspelt reference to Godfried Schalcken (1643–1706). It is possible the work was incorrectly attributed, or reattributed after the exhibition; many European paintings exhibited in the early United States are believed to have been copies after better-known artists or incorrectly attributed by collectors.
[Adriaen van?] Ostade, The Slaughtered Bullock
Fulton described this work as “a very curious piece of still life,” identifying the artist by his last name only.[20] It is possible the painter was Adriaen van Ostade. No information has been found for this work, and it may have subsequently been reattributed as a studio work or copy.
[Adriaen?] Brouwer, The Flemish Boors
Fulton cited only the artist’s last name and title in the account provided to Poulson’s. It may have been Adriaen Brouwer’s Boors Drinking (1640), which was later included in exhibitions at the Academy (1811, 1812, 1814, 1818–1820). After 1820, the work no longer appeared in Academy exhibition or collection records.
Adam and Eve
Peale mentioned a painting he called “Adam and Eve” in his letter to Fulton, asking who painted the canvas. Fulton paired it with Balestra’s Abel in his Poulson’s account: “Adam and Eve and the death of Abel is by an Italian artist, whose name we cannot announce at present.”[21] Antonio Molinari was likely the artist: works by the two Italian painters appeared in the Academy’s annual exhibition catalogues after 1811 (the Academy deaccessioned both works in 1989). They were presumably acquired from or donated by Fulton. Today Molinari’s work, entitled The Temptation of Adam and Eve, is in the collection of the David Owsley Museum of Art at Ball State University.
Robert Fulton, Charles, Third Earl of Stanhope
Fulton paid tribute in 1795 to his fellow engineer and patron Charles Stanhope, the third Earl of Stanhope. Peale did not note its location in his sketch of the Academy wall. It is possibly the portrait now documented by the Catalog of American Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.
Fulton referenced his portrait of Barlow in his promotional squib, but it was neither pictured nor annotated in Peale’s sketch. Fulton painted it as the basis for an engraved frontispiece to Barlow’s The Columbiad (1807). It was probably one of two works: a portrait in the collection of the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, which served as the basis for the engraved frontispiece of Barlow in The Columbiad, or a portrait in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.
“Mr. Lichleightner”
Accounts of the exhibition in Poulson’s and other publications noted “a number of fine paintings belonging to “Mr. Lichleightner” and available for sale.[22] Editors of the Selected Papers identified this individual as P.G. Lechleitner, a merchant later appointed consul for the Netherlands (vol. 2, part 2, 844-7, n. 8).[23] Rembrandt Peale later described “Lichleightner” as a Dutchman with a “choice collection of pictures for sale.”[24]
[1] “The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts,” Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser (Philadelphia), Nov. 26, 1807.
[2] “The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts,” The Port-Folio vol. 1, no. 6 (June 1, 1809), n.p.
[3] Charles Willson Peale to Robert Fulton, Nov. 15, 1807, in The Selected Papers of Charles Willson Peale and his Family, eds. Lillian B. Miller, Sidney Hart, Toby A. Appel, and David C. Ward (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1988), vol. 2, 1047.
[4] Fulton to Peale, Nov. 18, 1807, Selected Papers, vol. 2, 1049.
[5] Peale to Fulton, Nov. 10, 1807, Selected Papers, vol. 2, 1045.
[6] “Pennsylvania Academy,” Port-Folio (June 1, 1809).
[7] West to Peale, Sept. 19, 1809, Selected Papers, vol. 2, 1218-23.
[8] John Boydell, A Catalogue of the Pictures, etc., in the Shakespeare Gallery, Pall-Mall (London, 1793).
[9] “The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts,” Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser (Philadelphia), Nov. 26, 1807. See also “The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts,” The Democratic Press (Philadelphia), Nov. 28, 1807; [“The Pennsylvania Academy. . .”], The Literary Magazine, and American Register 8:50 (Nov. 1807): 263-64.
[10] For further reading, see Helmut von Erffa and Allen Staley, The Paintings of Benjamin West (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1986); Rosie Dias, Exhibiting Englishness: John Boydell’s Shakespeare Gallery and the Formation of a National Aesthetic (New Haven and London: Yale University Press for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2013).
[11] Peale to Fulton, Nov. 10, 1807, Selected Papers, vol. 2, 1045.
[12] “The Pennsylvania Academy,” Poulson’s, 1807.
[13] Catalogue of the Art Collection formed by the Late Samuel Latham Mitchill Barlow (New York: American Art Galleries and American Art Association, 1890), 58.
[14] “The Pennsylvania Academy,” Poulson’s, 1807.
[15] A Catalogue of a Few Finished Original Pictures, Particularly the First Installation of the Order of the Garter, One of the most elaborate Works of the late Benjamin West, Esq. P.R.A. . . Which will be sold by auction by Mr. Geo. Robins (London, 1829), lot 0131.
[16] “The Pennsylvania Academy,” Poulson’s, 1807.
[17] “The Pennsylvania Academy,” Poulson’s, 1807.
[18] Peale to Fulton, Nov. 15, 1807, Selected Papers, vol. 2, 1047.
[19] Peale to Fulton, Nov. 15, 1807, Selected Papers, vol. 2, 1047.
[20] “Pennsylvania Academy,” Poulson’s, 1807.
[21] “Pennsylvania Academy,” Poulson’s, 1807.
[22] “Pennsylvania Academy,” Poulson’s, 1807.
[23] Selected Papers, vol. 2, 844-7, n. 8.
[24] C. Edwards Lester, The Artists of America (New York, 1846), 207.
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