1803-1805

Rubens Peale (1784 - 1865)

American, 1776 - 1830

This cut paper profile by Moses Williams represents Rubens Peale, the youngest son of Rachel Brewer Peale (1744–1790) and Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827), the Philadelphia artist, inventor, and creator of Philadelphia’s Peale Museum, the nation’s first successful museum dedicated to educating and entertaining the public. An avid gardener and, during the last decade of his life, a still-life painter, Rubens managed his father’s Philadelphia museum before briefly owning and managing his brother Rembrandt’s Baltimore museum and then his own short-lived New York museum in lower Manhattan.

In 1802 the Philadelphia museum had introduced the physiognotrace, a machine that traced a sitter’s profile to produce a small souvenir portrait. Inexpensive, accurate, and quickly produced and reproduced, these popular pictures were exchanged by friends and family as keepsakes and indicators of one’s character.

Scholars believe that in 1776, Charles accepted Lucy and Scarborough Williams, a mixed-race couple, as payment for commissioned portraits. Their son, Moses, born in 1775, also became Peale’s property by law. Despite his participation in slavery, Charles lobbied for Pennsylvania’s 1780 Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery. Six years after its passage, he freed Lucy and Scarborough. But he did not liberate their son for another sixteen years. Moses became skilled in the work required to maintain the Peale Museum and create its displays. On his emancipation, Moses was employed by the museum, and he was distinguished by his ability to cut fine profile portraits on its physiognotrace.