1795

Portrait of Rubens Peale in uniform of the Macpherson Blues

Raphaelle Peale

American, 1774 - 1825

Raphaelle Peale’s portrait of his eleven-year-old brother is one of a limited number of oil portraits the artist painted during a career dominated by still life painting. This work documents Rubens’s boyish delight in playing soldier shortly after the politically volatile moment of the Whiskey Rebellion (1791–4), western Pennsylvanians’ angry response to a federal tax on the distilled spirits they used as a form of exchange on the frontier.

Raphaelle was an officer in the Macpherson Blues, the battalion of Philadelphia volunteers preparing to defend the city, then the capital of the United States, from the uprising. Rubens later recalled that Raphaelle dressed him in their uniform, and that he then "marched with them to their campground" along the Schuylkill.