Rembrandt Peale (1778 - 1860)

• Was an American artist and museum keeper.

• He was especially acclaimed for his likenesses of presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

• Rembrandt Peale was born the third of six surviving children (11 had died) to his mother, Rachel Brewer, and father, Charles Willson Peale in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

• The father, Charles, also a notable artist, named him after the noted 17th-century Dutch painter and engraver Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn.

• His father also taught all of his children, including Raphaelle Peale, Rubens Peale and Titian Peale, to paint scenery and portraiture, and tutored Rembrandt in the arts and sciences. 

• In July 1787, Charles Willson Peale introduced his son Rembrandt to George Washington, and the young aspirant artist watched his father paint the future president. 

• Rembrandt Peale completed more than 600 paintings.

• He painted portraits of American presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, Chief Justice John Marshall, and John C. Calhoun.

• In 1985, the National Gallery of Art paid $4.07 million for Rubens Peale with a Geranium, an 1801 portrait by his brother Rembrandt Peale.

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