1778-1860 Rembrandt Peale Galleries Rembrandt Peale (February 22, 1778 ?C October 3, 1860) was a 19th century American artist that received critical acclaim for his portraits of presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Although modern art critics would consider Peale??s artwork as French neoclassical, its dark and stylized characteristics are similar to 15th and 16th century paintings. Rembrandt Peale was born the third of six surviving children (eleven had died) to his mother, Rachel Brewer, and father, Charles Willson Peale in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, on February 22, 1778. The father, Charles, also a notable artist, taught each child to paint scenery and portraiture, and Rembrandt was no exception. Charles tutored Rembrandt about the importance of having a strong mind from learning arts and sciences. At the age of eight, Rembrandt discovered drawing, and at thirteen, painted his first known self-portrait. Later on in his life, Rembrandt Peale "often showed this painting to young beginners, to encourage them to go from 'bad' to better..." like his steady progressions to become a successful portraitist. A year after his mother??s death and remarriage of his father, Rembrandt Peale left the school of the arts, thereby applying his time to completing his first ever self-portrait at the age of 13. The canvas illustrates early mastery of a young aspiring artist, seeming very mature. The clothes, however give the notion that Peale over-exaggerated what a 13 year old would look like. This style demonstrates early forms of neoclassicism by the looks of Peale's angel-like hair, the way it waves and curls in such a fashion so as to depict an angel from a general Renaissance artist's works of art. In July of 1787, Charles Willson Peale introduced his son Rembrandt to George Washington, where the young aspirant artist watched his father paint the remarkable figure of the country. In 1795, at the age of 17, Rembrandt painted an aging Washington, though the painter had depicted the politician as far more aged than the original facial characteristics. It did, nevertheless attain praise and Rembrandt had begun his debut. At the age of 20, Rembrandt married 22-year-old Eleanor May Short (1776-1836) at St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Philadelphia. During their marriage, Rembrandt and Eleanor had nine children: Rosalba, Eleanor, Sarah Miriam, Michael Angelo, and Emma Clara among them. In 1822, Peale moved to New York City where he embarked on an attempt to paint what he hoped would become the "standard likeness" of Washington. He studied portraits by other artists including John Trumbull, Gilbert Stuart and his own father, as well as his own 1795 picture which had never truly satisfied him. His resulting work Patriae Pater, completed in 1824, depicts Washington through an oval window, and is considered by many to be second only to Gilbert Stuart's iconic Athenaeum painting of the first president. Peale subsequently attempted to capitalize on the success of what quickly became known as his "Porthole" picture. Patriae Pater was purchased by Congress in 1832 and still hangs in the U.S. Capitol. Later on, Peale made over 70 detailed replicas of the same "father of our country", the first President of the United States. Peale continued to paint other noted portraits, such as those of the third president Thomas Jefferson while he was in office (1805), and later on a portrait of Chief Justice John Marshall.  Related Paintings of Rembrandt Peale :. | Anna and the Blind Tobit | Familienportrat | Old Rabbi | Moses mit den Gesetzestafeln | Self-portrait. |
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Jean Baptiste Wicar
Jean-Baptiste Wicar (22 January 1762, Lille - 27 February 1834, Rome) was a French Neoclassical painter and art collector. The son of a carpenter, Wicar studied drawing at the free school in Lille before further honing his talents in the studio of David. The drawings Wicar created of Tableaux, statues, bas-reliefs et camees de la Galerie de Florence et du palais Pitti (Paintings, statues, bas-reliefs and cameos in the Gallery of Florence and the Pitti Palace) were published in Paris in 4 volumes at the Lacombe publishing house from 1789 to 1807. Wicar headed the commission set up by Napoleon I of France to loot artworks from the Austrian Netherlands to enrich museums in France - an initial convoy left Antwerp on 11 August 1794, notably with paintings by Rubens, for the Louvre. Abbeys and castles were systematically emptied of their contents, furniture and works of art. Wicar was also a member of the commission des sciences et des arts on the Italian campaign, in the entourage of Bonaparte. This commission was charged with seizing artworks that could enrich French national museum collections. He finally permanently settled in Rome in 1800 and became a portraitist of European renown. On his death in Rome, Wicar left the major collection of 1,300 drawings he had accumulated over his lifetime to the Societe des Sciences, de leAgriculture et des Arts de Lille. Mostly from the Italian school, but also in some small measure from the northern schools, it held drawings by artists like Raphael, Albrecht Derer, Lucas Cranach, Nicolas Poussin and Jacques-Louis David.
MEMLING, Hans
Netherlandish Northern Renaissance Painter, ca.1435-1494 South Netherlandish painter of German origin. Together with Dieric Bouts I and Hugo van der Goes, he was one of the most important exponents of the new artistic developments that flourished in the southern Netherlands in the 15th century in the wake of Jan van Eyck, the Master of Fl?malle and Rogier van der Weyden. Their principal innovation was to apply optic realism to devotional or mystical subjects. Although Memling lived in the turbulent period of transition from the Burgundian ruling house to that of the Habsburgs, little of this is evident in his work. His commissions were almost exclusively from rich burghers in Bruges (bankers, merchants and politicians) or churchmen and the occasional aristocrat. Often they were foreigners, especially Italians, who had political or financial connections with the town, whose central economic position was to last only a few decades longer. They had Memling paint their portraits, bust or full length, in devotional paintings or on altarpieces for their chapel in Bruges or back home. He seems not to have received official commissions (from the town council or court). An exceptional proportion of this oeuvre has survived. Besides about 20 altarpieces, often in several panels and of considerable size,
Jean Francois Millet
1814-1875 French Jean Francois Millet Galleries Millet was the first child of Jean-Louis-Nicolas and Aim??e-Henriette-Adelaide Henry Millet, members of the peasant community in the village of Gruchy, in Gr??ville-Hague (Normandy). Under the guidance of two village priests, Millet acquired a knowledge of Latin and modern authors, before being sent to Cherbourg in 1833 to study with a portrait painter named Paul Dumouchel. By 1835 he was studying full-time with Lucien-Th??ophile Langlois, a pupil of Baron Gros, in Cherbourg. A stipend provided by Langlois and others enabled Millet to move to Paris in 1837, where he studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts with Paul Delaroche. In 1839 his scholarship was terminated, and his first submission to the Salon was rejected. After his first painting, a portrait, was accepted at the Salon of 1840, Millet returned to Cherbourg to begin a career as a portrait painter. However, the following year he married Pauline-Virginie Ono, and they moved to Paris. After rejections at the Salon of 1843 and Pauline's death by consumption, Millet returned again to Cherbourg. In 1845 Millet moved to Le Havre with Catherine Lemaire, whom he would marry in a civil ceremony in 1853; they would have nine children, and remain together for the rest of Millet's life. In Le Havre he painted portraits and small genre pieces for several months, before moving back to Paris. It was in Paris in the middle 1840s that Millet befriended Constant Troyon, Narcisse Diaz, Charles Jacque, and Theodore Rousseau, artists who, like Millet, would become associated with the Barbizon school; Honor?? Daumier, whose figure draftsmanship would influence Millet's subsequent rendering of peasant subjects; and Alfred Sensier, a government bureaucrat who would become a lifelong supporter and eventually the artist's biographer. In 1847 his first Salon success came with the exhibition of a painting Oedipus Taken down from the Tree, and in 1848 his Winnower was bought by the government.