biography of Sarah Miriam PEALE (1800-1885)

Birth place: Philadelphia

Death place: Phila.

Addresses: Phila. through 1831; Baltimore, MD, 1831-47; St. Louis, MO, 1847-77; Phila., 1877-on

Profession: Portrait and still life painter

Studied: James Peale, her father

Exhibited: PAFA, 1817-31; Missouri Bank, St. Louis, 1846 (Senator T.H. Benton, Congressman Caleb Cushing, Senator Lewis Fields Linn); Western Acad. Art, St. Louis, 1860; Missouri Sanitary Fair, 1864; frequently at the annual agricultural & mechanical fairs, St. Louis, 1850s-60s (prizes, 1859, 1861-62, 1866-67)

Member: PAFA (she & her sister Anna Claypoole Peale were the first women elected academicians in 1824)

Work: Nat. Portrait Gal., Wash., DC; Peale Mus., Baltimore; Brazilian Embassy Coll., Wash., DC; Missouri Hist. Soc., St. Louis; VMFA; San Diego Mus. Art; Nat. Mus. Women in the Arts

Comments: Daughter of James Peale (see entry) and niece of Charles Willson Pearle (see entry) who encouraged and sponsored her at important social events in Wash., DC. During the 1820s, she and her sister Anna traveled frequently from Phila. to Baltimore, fulfilling portrait commissions from leading families and political and military leaders in both cities. For a brief time the sisters worked on a collaborative venture in which Anna would complete the miniature portrait and Sarah the canvas version of the same person, but the two tired of this by the mid 1820s. Sarah moved to Baltimore about 1831, remaining there until about 1847 and rising to become one of that city's leading portraitists. She also painted in Wash., DC, in these years, producing a number of portraits of politicians and diplomats (Caleb Cushing, Thomas Hart Benton, Henry Alexander Wise) and gaining the respect and familiarity of the politicians by attending sessions of Congress. Peale excelled at still-life, usually choosing fruit as the subject, and her work was purchased by Robert Gilmor, then the most important collector in Baltimore. In 1847, partly because of ill health, Peale moved from the East to St. Louis, establishing a studio where she continued to paint partraits and still lifes (which received high praise and many prizes in exhibitions). She returned to Philadelphia about 1877 and spent the last years of her life there.

Sources: G&W; Sellers, Charles Willson Peale; Born, Female Peales: Their Art and Its Tradition"; Rutledge, PA; Rutledge, MHS; Phila. CD 1828; Baltimore CD 1831-45; St. Louis BD 1854; Richmond Portraits; Pleasants, 250 Years of Painting in Maryland. More recently Rubinstein, American Women Artists, 46-49; Miller, ed. The Peale Family, 237-47; Tufts, American Women Artists, cat. nos. 1-5; 300 Years of American Art, vol. 1, 124. See Charles Willson Peale entry for archival information."