Portrait of James W. de Peyster

This set of portraits is all about marriage. The pleasant pair who regard the viewer, attired fashionably but not extravagantly, are New Yorkers Anna and James De Peyster, married first cousins. Their likenesses were captured thanks to another union—the marriage of James’ niece Elizabeth to the Philadelphia-based painter Charles Willson Peale in 1791. In 1798, Peale, Elizabeth and several of their children stayed with her uncle and aunt in New York, prompting the commission of several family portraits.

Charles Willson Peale was one of early America’s most active artistic and cultural entrepreneurs. Besides his career as a painter, he founded art schools and museums in several U.S. cities, and tirelessly advocated for the importance of art in the new nation’s public life. He also taught many of his large family to become artists, including his brother James and son Rembrandt, both represented in the Museum’s collections.