The Philadelphia Museum was an early museum in

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

started by the painter

Charles Willson Peale Charles Willson Peale (April 15, 1741 – February 22, 1827) was an American painter, military officer, scientist, and naturalist. In 1775, inspired by the American Revolution, Peale moved from his native Maryland to Philadelphia, where he set ...

and continued by his family. It was opened in 1784 as an art museum and added a natural history collection in 1786. The exhibits included the first nearly complete skeleton of the

mastodon A mastodon, from Ancient Greek μαστός (''mastós''), meaning "breast", and ὀδούς (''odoús'') "tooth", is a member of the genus ''Mammut'' (German for 'mammoth'), which was endemic to North America and lived from the late Miocene to ...

, a relative of the

mammoth A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus ''Mammuthus.'' They lived from the late Miocene epoch (from around 6.2 million years ago) into the Holocene until about 4,000 years ago, with mammoth species at various times inhabi ...

. Peale died in 1827 and the collection was sold in 1849 and 1854.

History

Early years

Peale opened the Philadelphia Museum in his home at Third and Lombard Streets in 1784. The first exhibition was a collection of forty-four portraits of "worthy personages" from the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...

. Two years later, in 1786, he advertised his museum as a repository for natural curiosities. In addition to portraits the museum's collection eventually included natural history specimens, fossils, archaeological finds, native American and Asian objects and curiosities. Peale preserved his animal specimens using the methods of

Edme-Louis Daubenton Edme-Louis Daubenton (12 August 1730 – 12 December 1785) was a French naturalist. Daubenton was the cousin of another French naturalist, Louis Jean-Marie Daubenton. Georges-Louis Leclerc, the Comte de Buffon engaged Edme-Louis Daubenton to su ...

, however the results were not satisfactory. He therefore tried other methods and found that arsenic or mercuric chloride were more effective. In 1794 Peale accepted the post of librarian at the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS) is an American scholarly organization and learned society founded in 1743 in Philadelphia that promotes knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, professional meetings, publicat ...

and moved his home and museum to their building at Fifth and Chestnut Streets.

The Peale Mastodon

C W Peale - The Exhumation of the Mastadon

In 1801 Peale visited a farm in New York State to view some recently discovered bones of a

, an extinct relative of the European mammoth which was then known as the Great Incognitum. He agreed to pay the farmer $200 for the bones already discovered and $100 for permission to find the remaining bones. The excavation involved draining a 12 foot pit and took six weeks, but eventually the first nearly complete skeleton of the species was recovered. As the skeleton was incomplete Peale's son Rembrandt carved wooden replicas with the help of the sculptor William Rush and Moses Williams, a formerly enslaved person. This was only the second time that a fossil skeleton had been mounted, the previous example being a

megatherium ''Megatherium'' ( ; from Greek () 'great' + () 'beast') is an extinct genus of ground sloths endemic to South America that lived from the Early Pliocene through the end of the Late Pleistocene. It is best known for the elephant-sized type spe ...

assembled in Madrid. The skeleton was unveiled in December as a separate exhibit costing 50¢, in addition to 25¢ to visit the museum. Peale commemorated the excavation with his painting of 1806–1808 ''The Exhumation of the Mastodon''. The skeleton was purchased by the naturalist

Johann Jakob Kaup Johann Jakob von Kaup (10 April 1803 – 4 July 1873) was a German naturalist. A proponent of natural philosophy, he believed in an innate mathematical order in nature and he attempted biological classifications based on the Quinarian system. Kaup ...

in 1854 and is now in the

Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt (HLMD) is a large multidisciplinary museum in Darmstadt, Germany. The museum exhibits Rembrandt, Beuys, a primeval horse and a mastodon under the slogan "The whole world under one roof". As one of the oldest publ ...

in Germany. Peale also reconstructed a second skeleton, which was later displayed in the

Peale Museum The Peale is a community museum in Baltimore, Maryland, which opened in 2022 after a 5-year renovation. It occupies the first building in the Americas, Western Hemisphere to be designed and built specifically as a museum. Rembrandt Peale's ori ...

in Baltimore, then purchased by

John Collins Warren John Warren may refer to: Entertainment * John F. Warren (1909–2000), American cinematographer * John Warren (actor) (1916–1977), British screenwriter and actor * John Warren (musician) (born 1938), Canadian baritone saxophonist and compos ...

and eventually acquired by the

American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Located in Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 21 interconn ...

in New York.

Independence Hall

In 1802 the museum moved again to

Independence Hall Independence Hall is a historic civic building in Philadelphia, where both the United States Declaration of Independence, Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States were debated and adopted by the Founding Fathers of ...

, the former Pennsylvania statehouse. Peale retired in 1810 and left the running of the museum to his son

Rubens Sir Peter Paul Rubens ( ; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat. He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque tradition. Rubens' highly charged compositions reference erudite aspects of clas ...

. The museum was incorporated as the Philadelphia Museum Company in 1821. In 1822 Peale painted '' The Artist in His Museum'', a self portrait with his museum in the Long Room of the Independence Hall in the background.

Other museums

In 1814 Peale's son

Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (; ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), mononymously known as Rembrandt was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker, and Drawing, draughtsman. He is generally considered one of the greatest visual artists in ...

opened a second

in Baltimore, which was the first purpose built museum building in the United States. Rubens opened a third museum in New York in 1825. In the 1840s the Peale museums suffered from declining revenue and competition from the showman

P. T. Barnum Phineas Taylor Barnum (July 5, 1810 – April 7, 1891) was an American showman, businessman, and politician remembered for promoting celebrated hoaxes and founding with James Anthony Bailey the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. He was ...

, who opened his American Museum in New York in 1842. The New York Peale museum was closed in 1842 and the Baltimore museum in 1845, their contents being sold to Barnum.

Later years

Peale died in 1827 and the museum moved again to Chestnut Street Arcade. Later Peale's son

Titian Tiziano Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), Latinized as Titianus, hence known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italian Renaissance painter, the most important artist of Renaissance Venetian painting. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near Belluno. Ti ...

took over and then his grandson Edmund. In 1838 the museum moved to a newly constructed building at Ninth and Sansom streets, which was also known as the Chinese Museum as it initially housed the Chinese collection of Nathan Dunn, one of its directors, in its lower story. That building burned down in 1854 The majority of the Philadelphia collection was sold to P. T. Barnum and

Moses Kimball Moses Kimball (October 24, 1809 – February 21, 1895) was an American politician, museum curator and owner, and showman. Kimball was a business rival and close associate of P. T. Barnum and public-spirited citizen of Boston, Massachusetts who ...

in 1849 and was subsequently lost or destroyed. The portrait collection was auctioned in 1854 and some of it was bought by the City of Philadelphia for display in Independence Hall. File:Charles Willson Peale - George Washington - y1978-45 - Princeton University Art Museum.jpg, George Washington File:Adams, John (bust) - NARA - 532843.jpg, John Adams File:Jefferson-peale.jpg, Thomas Jefferson File:Charles Willson Peale, Comte de Rochambeau.jpg, Comte de Rochambeau File:François Jean de Chastellux.jpg, François Jean de Chastellux File:Cambray-Digny by Charles Willson Peale.jpg, Louis Antoine Jean Baptiste Chevalier De Cambray Digny File:Charles Willson Peale, Louis Le Bègue de Presle Duportail.jpg, Louis Le Bègue de Presle Duportail File:Charles Willson Peale, Chevalier de Ternant.jpg, Chevalier de Ternant File:Marquis de Lafayette 3.jpg, Marquis de Lafayette File:Nicholas Biddle, by James Peale, after Charles Willson Peale.jpg, Nicholas Biddle File:Elias Boudinot by Charles Willson Peale, circa 1782-1784.jpg, Elias Boudinot File:ArthurStClairOfficialPortrait-restored.jpg, Arthur St Clair File:Thomas Forrest by Charles Willson Peale 1820.jpg, Thomas Forrest File:Horatio Gates.jpg, Horatio Gates File:Maj. Gen. Nathanael Greene, National Park Service.jpg, Nathanael Greene File:John Hanson by Charles Willson Peale, circa 1781.jpg, John Hanson File:John Eager Howard Uniform.jpg, John Eager Howard File:Samuel Huntington - Charles Willson Peale.jpg, Samuel Huntington File:John Paul Jones by Charles Wilson Peale, c1781.jpg, John Paul Jones File:Johann de Kalb.jpg, Johann de Kalb File:Henry Knox by Peale.jpg, Henry Knox File:Henry Laurens by Charles Willson Peale, 1784.jpg, Henry Laurens File:Lighthorse restored.jpg, Henry Lee File:Richard Henry Lee by Charles Willson Peale, 1785.jpg, Richard Henry Lee File:Benjamin lincoln by charles wilson peale.jpg, Benjamin Lincoln File:Thomas Mifflin by Charles Willson Peale.jpg, Thomas Mifflin File:DanielMorgan.jpeg, DAniel Morgan File:Timothy Pickering, Peale.jpg, Timothy Pickering File:ZebulonPikeByPeale.jpg, Zebulon Pike File:Peyton Randolph by Charles Willson Peale, 1782.jpg, Peyton Randolph File:William smallwood.jpg, William Smallwood File:Baron Steuben by Peale, 1780.jpg, Baron Steuben File:James Mitchell Varnum, Charles Willson Peale.jpg, James Mitchell Varnum File:WILLIAMS exb.jpg, Otho Holland Williams File:James Wilkinson.jpg, James Wilkinson

References

External links

* {{Charles Willson Peale 1784 establishments in Pennsylvania 1849 disestablishments in the United States Art museums and galleries in Philadelphia Art museums and galleries established in the 1780s Defunct museums in Pennsylvania