Opthalmologist photos on Flickr

I had an unnerving incident recently that impacted my eyesight. All is well after a couple of visits to the opthalmologist, but this, another step along the path of my senior years, has literally opened my eyes and made me treasure the gift of seeing every day.

134/366 13th Sunset by Gillian Everett

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Spent time today painting our newly constructed fence. Lovely to see another wonderful sunset from our back deck.

Ian went to the opthalmologist, and picked up our "click & collect" groceries.

Great Danes and their teddies - good news Holly is on the mend and coming home this afternoon by ilsebatten

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Holly with her teddy. She had had him for approximately 10 minutes and he was already in need of an opthalmologist and an ear-nose and throat surgeon. Can you see why I adore her so much?

Sunday midday: Poor Holly has had to be hospitalized with a bleeding ulcer. THis poor little girl had such a bad start to her life that she is constantly battling her compromised body and immune system. It is only because of her loving parents, my daughter Claire and son in law ANdrew that she is still alive. Update MOnday morning: HOlly has been on a drip, is doing very very well and is coming home this afternoon - yipee. Thank you all for your kindness and your prayers which I am sure held us all safe. Thank you dear people

bridge over troubled waters by ilsebatten

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For Monday Photo Challenges and THursday Retreads

www.flickr.com/groups/1091826@N21/

This week's challenge was to "Post an image of a bridge, road, path, tunnel, highway, byway, etc. In other words something that allows you to get from here to there.....and back again". Thank you Pamelalong for this inspiring challenge.

Where: East London South Africa where I live. The road over the bridge leads to and past Marina Glen which once hosted a royal visit. Sadly this beautiful little 'blind river' which is only open to the Eastern Beach when there is heavy rainfall, is badly polluted by people who don't care about containing their rubbish. Makes me so angry.

It is wintertime here as you can see.

In addition to my flu I now have a corneal ulcer as well. Fortunately we have some of the best opthalmologists in the world right here and Andrew has prescribed the right meds and I will be better in no time at all.

Hope your MOnday is a good one.

2012-07-05 Pzb01190 by Not Quite Me

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Sails

Yesterday is but a dream, tomorrow but a vision. - Explore #218 by Usman Ali Khan

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But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well, therefore, to this day.

~ Indian Proverb

This is a long overdue dedication, I've gotten so much appreciation & compliments for my bokeh shots & I would like to dedicate this shot to the person who inspired me to get into bokehs and hopefully this will answer your question as well; that, "How I got into this bokeh thingy?" Well this ones for v1nz, look what youv'e done to me! =P... Thanks for the addiction! =)

Happy Gorgeous Green Thursday & HBWH ;)

Visualize this!

P.S: Ya ya ya! I know I've been posting too many water drops lately... what can I do! I love em =)

Explore #120, Thanks everyone! *hugs*

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Please do not add glittery graphics and or pictures with your comments.

Vertical and horizontal Retina Scans by Chic Bee

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My macular degeneration scans of one eye show no worsening as of July 2020. These scans look about the same as the ones taken six months earlier.

La línea F en Brooklyn. Al optalmologo. 6 de agosto, 2021. Los ayes lo tienen. by Sharon Frost

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(F train in Brooklyn, to the ophthalmologist. The ayes have it.)

Blog: sharonfrost.typepad.com/day_books

7 1/2 x 15 in double page spread; watercolor, ink, whatever, on Moleskine notebook. #opthalmologist #subways #ftrain #passengers

Leslie Bumblebee Vignette by Chic Bee

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Opthalmologist Leslie Bumblebee is one of Miss Cecily's adult dancers. She emailed a photo of herself during her office Halloween Costume Day on Friday. She is wearing one of Miss Cecily's costumes for Arizona ballet Theatre's performances...

Opthalmologists’Corner by Eleventh Earl

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Take us to your leader!

No, not that orange fucker! The woman with the pudding bowl hair cut.

at the opthalmologist by kalikali

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Secret Garden - Explore #277 =) by Usman Ali Khan

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Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams.

~ Ashley Smith

Happy Gorgeous Green Thursday =)

Used an old paper texture n cross processed this one; well this is my first with a texture.. hope u all like it.. ; )

Explore #277 - 11th Sep, 2008, Thanks everyone.. =)

Take a walk On Black - Large

Roxy by Jane Brown

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we had a family Christmas here yesterday - turkey and the trimmings . . .

I am still looking through photos - slowed down a bit by eyesight (going to opthalmologist on Friday) - tomorrow evening we are celebrating new year's eve with Claire and Earl, but back on Wednesday evening to start catching up.

Hijacked by Ata Mohammad Adnan

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Last night I was hijacked while I was in a CNG autorickshaw from Peninsula restaurant. The driver, who was involved helped 3 more passerby's to enter the taxi and hijack all my belongings.

After 15 minutes of riding, they left me almost 3-4kms away from where they picked me up from, my eyes smudged with an ointment and chilly mixture.

I was then helped by a couple of strangers to my father's hospital, seen by an opthalmologist to rule out any possible injury,and then returned home before taking this photograph.

In the process, I have lost my beloved Nikon D700 with the Sigma 85mm f1.4 mounted, and my recently bought X100s as well.

I wish I could explain how helpless I feel now.

Max is not my uncle, Roxy declared, he's my brother! I've always wanted a sister! said Max by Jane Brown

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we had a family Christmas here yesterday - turkey and the trimmings . . .

I am still looking through photos - slowed down a bit by eyesight (going to opthalmologist on Friday) - tomorrow evening we are celebrating new year's eve with Claire and Earl, but back on Wednesday evening to start catching up.

Division St. Circa 1974 Parkersburg, WV by Daniel Westfall

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Photo Credit: Harry Barnett

If you get off of US 50 at the Division St. exit, and head south on WV 14, this would be what you'd see when you approached the intersection with Camden Avenue.

In my earliest memories, the mid 1970's, the roast beef restaurant was closed and boarded up. Local opthalmologist, Dr. Frame, bought the building and remodeled it into a shop for glasses known as Frames Etc.

Picway Shoes building is still intact and houses Family Carpet One

Quaker State is gone. A small strip mall has taken its place.

The Ashland station, as well as the houses beside it, are all gone. This corner now contains a bank, a Burger King, and a Sonic, with a Go-Mart gas station behind the Sonic.

I've changed the date a couple of times, but I think I have narrowed it down to sometime in 1974. Gas is advertised as 57 cents a gallon at the Ashland station, the cars in the photo date to the early '70s, and an Interstate 77 sign can be found in the median.

Al ophthalmologo en el F train, Manhattan. by Sharon Frost

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3 de marzo, 2023. F tren, Manhattan. Al Oftalmólogo. Mi vida social es ahora mis citas con médicos. (My social life seems to revolved around medical appointments these days.)

8 1/2 x 11 in double page spread; watercolor, ink, whatever, on Stillman and Birn soft cover Epsilon

#subways #ftrain #opthalmologists #passengers #manhattan #stillmanandbirn

Opthalmologist's Tools by Graham Moore

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This equipment is probably old enough to be considered vintage but is in excellent repair and used every day. It was made by a well known Japanese optical manufacturer, Topcon.

2012-07-05 Pzb01197 by Not Quite Me

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Orange window in The Richard Desmond Children’s Eye Centre (RDCEC) in Moorfields Eye Hospital.

(RDCEC), which opened in February 2007, is the largest hospital anywhere in the world solely dedicated to the prevention, treatment and cure of children’s eye disease. Moorfields Eye Hospital itself was founded in 1805.

Architect: Penoyre & Prasad LLP

Berlin: Denkmal für den Augenarzt Albrecht von Graefe in der Schumannstraße vor der Charité - Monument to the opthalmologist Albrecht von Graefe in Schumannstraße in front of the Charité hospital by riesebusch

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Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Albrecht von Graefe (* 22. Mai 1828 in Berlin; † 20. Juli 1870 ebenda) begründete in Deutschland das Fach der Augenheilkunde oder Ophthalmologie, die bis dahin zur Chirurgie gehörte. 1866 wurde Graefe Direktor der augenärztlichen Abteilung der Charité und war besonders erfolgreich bei der Behandlung des Grünen Stars und des von ihm schon zuvor untersuchten Schielens (Strabismus). Die von Graefe entwickelte Operationstechnik war Grundlage für die Operationsmethoden dieser Erkrankung bis in die 60er Jahre des 20. Jahrhunderts. Mehr als 10.000 Augenoperationen soll er durchgeführt haben. Auch die konsequente Anwendung des von Helmholtz entwickelten Augenspiegels geht auf ihn zurück. (Quelle: Wikipedia, gekürzt)

Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Albrecht von Gräfe, often Anglicized to Graefe (1828 – 1870), was a Prussian pioneer of German ophthalmology. In 1858 he became an associate professor of ophthalmology in Berlin, where in 1866 he was appointed a full professor. In 1870, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Graefe died in Berlin from pulmonary tuberculosis on 20 July 1870. Graefe made many contributions to ophthalmological science, being considered one of the more important (if not the most important) figures in 19th century ophthalmology. Among his achievements were a method of treating glaucoma and a new operation for cataract. In 1863 he founded the Deutsche Ophtalmologische Gesellschaft (German Opthalmological Society)

(Source: en.wikipedia.org, adapted)

Eye chart by Todd Lappin

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An old opthalmologists' eye chart, glowing on the wall via the projector in the corner of our living room.

Plymouth by JOHN LLOYD

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Parked at opthalmologist's office, Aberdeen, Washington. With dual exhaust, not likely a flathead six anymore.

Portrait of Rubens Peale with a Geranium by Alec Frazier

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Rubens Peale with a Geranium

West Building, Main Floor—Gallery 60A

•Date: 1801

•Medium: Oil on Canvas

•Dimensions:

oOverall: 71.4 × 61 cm (28⅛ × 24 in.)

oFramed: 89.5 × 79.7 × 5.6 cm (35¼ × 31⅜ × 2 3/16 in.)

•Credit Line: Patrons’ Permanent Fund

•Accession Number: 1985.59.1

•Artists/Makers:

oArtist: Rembrandt Peale, American, 1778-1860

Overview

Charles Willson Peale christened most of his seventeen children after famous artists and scientists; however, there is little consistency between the sons’ and daughters’ namesakes and their adult careers. While Rembrandt Peale did become a painter and the portraitist of this work, Rubens Peale, who sat for this likeness at the age of seventeen, was a botanist.

Painted in Philadelphia, the work could be described as a double portrait because the geranium, reputed to be the first specimen of this exotic plant ever grown in the New World, is as lovingly portrayed as the painter’s brother is. The Peale family often collaborated in their endeavors, and here Rembrandt commemorated his brother’s horticultural triumph. Rembrandt’s own skill is evident in the clearly defined pools of light on Rubens’ cheeks. In a phenomenon familiar to all, his glasses focus the beams passing through them, thereby forming the brighter disks of light under his eyes.

Rubens Peale with a Geranium is a supreme example of the unaffected naturalism which typified the artist’s early maturity. Combining firm, clear drawing, carefully modulated color, and an intense devotion to detail, twenty-three-year-old Rembrandt Peale produced an eloquent expression of his family’s philosophical orientation.

Inscription

•Lower Right: Rem Peale / 1801

Provenance

The artist; James Claypoole Copper, Philadelphia;[1] Mary Jane Peale [1827-1902], Pottsville, Pennsylvania, the daughter of the sitter, Rubens Peale;[2] her nephew, Albert Charles Peale [1849-1914], Washington, D.C.;[3] his cousin, Jessie Sellers Colton [Mrs. Sabin Woolworth Colton, Jr., 1855-1932], Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania;[4] her daughter, Mildred Colton [Mrs. Robert P.] Esty [1883-1977], Ardmore, Pennsylvania;[5] sold to Lawrence A. Fleischman, Detroit, Michigan;[6] (Kennedy Galleries, New York); purchased by Pauline E. [Mrs. Norman B.] Woolworth;[7] (sale, Sotheby’s, New York, 5 December 1985, lot 42); purchased through (Kennedy Galleries, New York) by NGA.

[1]Rebecca Irwin Graff, Genealogy of the Claypoole Family of Philadelphia, 1893: 79, which does not record Copper’s life dates.

[2]Copper’s gift of the portrait to Rubens’ Peale’s daughter Mary Jane Peale in 1854 is discussed in the NGA systematic catalogue. For Mary Jane Peale’s dates, see the genealogy of the Peale Family in Charles H. Elam, ed., The Peale Family: Three Generations of American Artists, Exh. cat., Detroit Institute of Arts; Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, New York, 1967: 10, and Lillian B. Miller, In Pursuit of Fame: Rembrandt Peale, 1778-1860, Exh. cat., National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C., 1992: 231. For information that she lived in Pottsville, see Carol Eaton Hevner, “Rembrandt Peale’s portraits of his brother Rubens”, Antiques 130 (November): 1012.

[3]Mary Jane Peale bequeathed the portrait to her nephew Albert Charles Peale, the son of her brother Charles Willson Peale (1821-1871) and Harriet Friel Peale; for his dates see Charles Coleman Sellers, “Peale Genealogy,” manuscript, Peale Papers Office, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C., and The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, vol. 21: 255-56. Albert Peale was one of the executors of Mary Jane Peale’s estate.

[4]The painting belonged to Jessie Sellers Colton by 1923, when she lent it to the exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. A label formerly on the painting (in NGA curatorial files) gives her name and address, and states that she was the great-niece of Rubens Peale. For her dates see Charles Coleman Sellers, “Peale Genealogy,” manuscript, Peale Papers Office, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.

[5]Mrs. Esty owned the portrait when it was reproduced in Charles Coleman Sellers, Charles Willson Peale, Later Life (1790-1827), Philadelphia, 1947: 2:opp. 147, fig. 12, and lent it in 1955 to the exhibition at Pennsylvania State University. For her birth date see Charles Coleman Sellers, “Peale Genealogy,” manuscript, Peale Papers Office, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.; her date of death is recorded in Social Register Association, Social Register, Summer 1978, New York, 1978: 92:98.

[6]Fleischman confirmed his ownership of the portrait in his letter of 19 December 1985 to NGA (in NGA curatorial files).

[7]Mrs. Woolworth was the owner by 1963, when she lent the painting to the exhibition American Art from American Collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Associated Names

•Colton, Jessie Sellers

•Copper, James Claypoole

•Esty, Mildred Colton

•Fleischman, Lawrence A.

•Kennedy Galleries

•Peale, Albert Charles

•Peale, Mary Jane

•Sotheby’s

•Woolworth, Pauline E.

Exhibition History

•1923—Exhibition of Portraits by Charles Willson Peale and James Peale and Rembrandt Peale, The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 1923, no. 73.

•1955—Pennsylvania Painters, Pennsylvania State University, University Park; The Toledo Museum of Art, 1955-1956, no. 11.

•1960—The Fabulous Peale Family, Kennedy Galleries, New York, 1960, no. 74.

•1963—American Art from American Collections, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1963, no. 185.

•1965—The Peale Family and Peale’s Baltimore Museum, 1814-1830, The Peale Museum, Baltimore, 1965, no. 16.

•1967—The Peale Family: Three Generations of American Artists, The Detroit Institute of Arts; Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, 1967, no. 139.

•1970—19th Century America: Paintings and Sculpture, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1970, no. 2, repro.

•1970—The American Painting Collection of Mrs. Norman B. Woolworth, Coe Kerr Gallery, New York, 1970, no. 87, repro.

•1976—The Eye of Thomas Jefferson, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1976, no. 600, repro.

•1980—The Woolworth Collection: American Paintings, Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama, 1980, checklist no. 2.

•1981—Painters of the Humble Truth: Masterpieces of American Still Life, 1801-1939, Philbrook Art Center, Tulsa; The Oakland Museum; Baltimore Museum of Art; National Academy of Design, New York, 1981-1982, checklist no. 112 (repro. in cat. by W. Gerdts).

•1983—A New World: Masterpieces of American Painting 1760-1910, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Grand Palais, Paris, 1983-1984, no. 11, repro.

•1989—Raphaelle Peale Still Lifes, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.,; The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 1988-1989, fig. 56.

•1992—In Pursuit of Fame: Rembrandt Peale, 1778-1860, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C., 1992-1993, fig. 22, pl. 4.

•1996—The Peale Family: Creation of a Legacy 1770-1870, Philadelphia Museum of Art; M. H. De Young Memorial Museum; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1996-1997, no. 162, pl. 16 and frontispiece.

•1999—America: The New World in 19th-Century Painting, Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna, 1999, no. 18, repro.

•2003—Jefferson’s America & Napoleon’s France: An Exhibition for the Louisiana Purchase Bicentennial, New Orleans Museum of Art, 2003, no. 136, repro.

•2011—The Great American Hall of Wonders: Art, Science, and Invention in the Nineteenth Century, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., 2011-2012, fig. 102.

•2015—Audubon to Warhol: The Art of the American Still Life, Philadelphia Museum of Art; Phoenix Art Museum, 2015-2016, (shown only in Philadelphia).

Bibliography

•1947—Sellers, Charles Coleman. Charles Willson Peale. Vol. 2: Later Life (1790-1827). Philadelphia, 1947: fig. 12, opp. 147.

•1956—Rendezvous for Taste: Peale’s Baltimore Museum, 1814-1830. Exh. cat. Peale Museum, Baltimore, 1956: repro. 2, 28, no. 82 (not exhibited).

•1965—Feld, Stuart P. “‘Loan Collection,’ 1965.” Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 23, no. 8 (April 1965): 283, repro.

•1971—Gerdts, William H., and Russell Burke. American Still-Life Painting. New York, 1971: 36, repro. 34, fig. 2-12.

•1976—Adams, William Howard, ed. The Eye of Thomas Jefferson. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1976: 346, no. 600, repro.

•1976—From Seed to Flower: Philadelphia, 1681-1876; A Horticultural Point of View. Exh. cat. Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, Philadelphia, 1976: 24, repro. 27.

•1977—Levene, John R. Clinical Refraction and Visual Science. London, 1977: 171-172.

•1981—Gerdts, William H. Painters of the Humble Truth: Masterpieces of American Still Life 1801-1939. Columbia, Missouri, 1981: 3, color pl. 3, 62-63.

•1983—Miller, Lillian B., Sidney Hart, and David C. Ward, eds. The Selected Papers of Charles Willson Peale and His Family. Vol. 2: Charles Willson Peale: The Artist as Museum Keeper, 1791-1810. New Haven, 1988: 1047 n.4, 1096, 1098 n.15, 1241 n.2, pl. 6.

•1984—Foshay, Ella. Reflections of Nature: Flowers in American Art. Exh. cat. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1984: 32-34, repro.

•1985—Hevner, Carol Eaton. Rembrandt Peale, 1778-1860: A Life in the Arts. With a biographical essay by Lillian B. Miller. Exh. cat. Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1985: 20, 21 fig. 5, 103 n. 8.

•1986—Hevner, Carol Eaton. “Rembrandt Peale’s Portraits of His Brother Rubens.” Antiques 130 (November 1986): 1010-1013.

•1986—Hevner, Carol Eaton. “Rubens Peale with a Geranium by Rembrandt Peale.” In Art at Auction: The Year at Sotheby’s 1985-86. New York, 1986: 114-116, fig. 1 (color).

•1987—Hevner, Carol Eaton. “The Cover.” Journal of the American Medical Association 257, no. 15 (17 April 1987): 1996 and color repro., cover.

•1988—Wilmerding, John. American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art. Rev. ed. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1988: 66, no. 10, color repro.

•1988—Wilmerding, John. “America’s Young Masters: Raphaelle, Rembrandt, and Rubens.” In Nicolai Cikovsky, Jr. Raphaelle Peale Still Lifes. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia. Washington, D.C., 1988: 72-93.

•1991—Gingold, Diane J., and Elizabeth A.C. Weil. The Corporate Patron. New York, 1991: 136-137, color repro.

•1991—Kopper, Philip. America’s National Gallery of Art: A Gift to the Nation. New York, 1991: 292, color repro.

•1992—American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 256, repro.

•1992—Hevner, Carol Eaton. “The Paintings of Rembrandt Peale: Character and Conventions.” In Miller, Lillian B. In Pursuit of Fame: Rembrandt Peale, 1778-1860. Exh. cat. National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C., 1992: 255, 57-60, fig. 22, 160, color pl. 4, 243.

•1992—National Gallery of Art, Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 222, repro.

•1994—Craven, Wayne. American Art: History and Culture. New York, 1994: 155, color fig. 11.3.

•1996—Kornhauser, Elizabeth Mankin. American Paintings Before 1945 in the Wadsworth Atheneum. London, 1996: no. 597, repro.

•1996—Miller, Lillian B., ed. The Peale Family: Creation of a Legacy, 1770-1870. Exh. cat. Trust for Museum Exhibitions and National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C., 1996: repro. 35, 51-52, 309.

•1996—Miller, Lillian B. “The Peale Legacy: The Art of an American Family, 1770-1870.” American Art Review 8, no. 6 (1996): repro. 141.

•1997—Follensbee, Billie J.A. “Rubens Peale’s Spectacles: An Optical Illusion?” Survey of Ophthalmology 41, no. 5 (March-April 1997): 417-424, repro.

•1997—Hughes, Robert. American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America. New York, 1997: 106-107, fig. 69.

•1998—Torchia, Robert Wilson, with Deborah Chotner and Ellen G. Miles. American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part II. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1998: 48-57, color repro.

•2002—Solti, Carol. “Rembrandt Peale’s Rubens Peale with a Geranium: A Possible Source in David Teniers the Younger.” American Art Journal 33, nos. 1 and 2 (2002): 4-19, fig. 1.

•2004—Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 332-333, no. 267, color repro.

•2013—Harris, Neil. Capital Culture: J. Carter Brown, the National Gallery of Art, and the Reinvention of the Museum Experience. Chicago and London, 2013: 407.

•2015—“Art for the Nation: The Story of the Patrons’ Permanent Fund.” National Gallery of Art Bulletin, no. 53 (Fall 2015): 2, repro.

•2019—Wallach, Alan. “‘A Distasteful, Indelicate Subject’.” American Art 33, no. 3 (Fall 2019): 29, 30, color fig. 2.

From American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part II:

1985.59.1

Rubens Peale with a Geranium

•1801

•Oil on Canvas, 71.4 × 61 (28 Vs × 24)

•Patrons’ Permanent Fund

•Inscriptions:

oAt Lower Right: Rem Peale / 1801

Technical Notes:

The tacking margins of the mediumweight plain-weave fabric support have been trimmed. The painting has been lined with a heavier weight plain-weave fabric that appears to be a prepared artist’s canvas; its white ground layer is visible on the reverse of the lining.1 The ground layer is creamy white and of medium thickness. Infrared reflectography revealed limited underdrawing in the right hand and the flowerpot. The paint was applied as a smooth, thin, fluid-to-dry paste, generally wet-into-wet, with some low impasto in the highlights. X-radiography reveals slight changes in the sitter’s neckwear. A small ruffle that was painted below the fabric around the sitter’s neck has been covered with addition to that fabric, and by the black waistcoat. Infrared reflectography reveals changes in the geranium leaves and shows that the entire rim of the flowerpot was painted before it was covered by the lower leaf.

There is moderate abrasion, which reveals the ground in some areas. There are also scattered pinpoint old flake losses, and occasional other repaired losses, including one measuring approximately i cm by 0.5 cm in the right side of the lens that is on the viewer’s right, and a slightly smaller loss outside and to the right of the frame around the same lens. The varnish is slightly discolored.

Provenance:

The artist; James Claypoole Copper, Philadelphia;2 Mary Jane Peale [1827-1902], Pottsville, Pennsylvania, the daughter of the sitter, Rubens Peale;3 her nephew, Albert Charles Peale [1849-1914], Washington, D.C.;4 his cousin, Jessie Sellers Colton [Mrs. Sabin Woolworth Colton, Jr., 1855-1932], Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania;5 her daughter, Mildred Colton [Mrs. Robert P.] Esty [1883-1977], Ardmore, Pennsylvania;6 sold to Lawrence A. Fleischman, Detroit, Michigan;7 (Kennedy Galleries, New York); purchased by Pauline E. [Mrs. Norman B.] Woolworth;8 (sale, Sotheby’s, New York, 5 December 1985, no. 42).

Exhibited:

Exhibition of Portraits by Charles Willson Peale and James Peale and Rembrandt Peale, PAFA, 1923, no. 73. Pennsylvania Painters, Pennsylvania State University, University Park; Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio, 1955-1956, no. 11. The Fabulous Peale Family, Kennedy Galleries, New York, 1960, no. 74.9 American Art from American Collections, MM A, 1963, no. 185. The Peale Family and Peale’s Baltimore Museum, 1814-1830, PM, 1965, no. 16. The Peale Family: Three Generations of American Artists, DÍA; MWPI, 1967, no. 139. 19th Century America: Paintings and Sculpture, MM A, 1970, no. 2. The American Painting Collection of Mrs. Norman B. Woolworth, Coe Kerr Gallery, New York, 1970, no. 87. The Eye of Thomas Jefferson, NGA, 1976, no. 600. Painters of the Humble Truth: Masterpieces of American Still Life, Philbrook Art Center, Tulsa; Oakland Museum; BMA; NAD, 1981-1982, checklist no. 112. A New World: Masterpieces of American Painting 1760-1910, MFA; CGA; Grand Palais, Paris, 1983-1984, no. 11. Raphaelle Peale Still Lifes, NGA; PAFA, 1988-1989, no cat. no. In Pursuit of Fame: Rembrandt Peale, ijj8-i86o, NPG, 1992-1993, no cat. no. The Peale Family: Creation of a Legacy, 1770-1870, PMA; FAMSF; CGA, 1996-1997, no. 162.10

This portrait of seventeen-year-old Rubens Peale by his older brother Rembrandt Peale is among the finest portraits in the history of American art. Rembrandt Peale painted the portrait with exceptional care and precision, observing his brother so closely that the viewer feels emotionally as well as physically close to him. Rubens, seated at a table, leans slightly to his right and looks downward. He seems to be preoccupied and not looking through his silver-framed glasses. Next to him on the table is a tall, somewhat leggy geranium with green leaves and small red flowers, in a terra-cotta pot. Rubens’ left hand, resting on the table, holds a second pair of glasses, while his right hand, crossing his left, rests on the rim of the flowerpot, two fingers touching the soil. Rembrandt’s sensitivity toward his sibling seems to be mirrored in Rubens’ care for the plant, characterized by this gentle, nurturing gesture. Rembrandt also emphasizes the sense of touch over sight, since Rubens is not looking at the plant. Rembrandt has also carefully represented the direction of light, which falls from the upper left onto Rubens and the plant, perhaps signaling the depiction of a specific time and place.

Rubens Peale (1784-1865) was the ninth of eleven children of artist and naturalist Charles Willson Peale and his first wife Rachel. Six of their eleven children did not survive to adulthood, and Rachel herself died in 1790, when Rubens was a child. He was the younger brother of Raphaelle, Rembrandt, and Angelica Kauffmann Peale, and the older brother of Sophonisba Angusciola Peale. Rubens was small for his age, with poor eyesight, as he later described himself:

I was very delicate in health and our family phycian [sic] Dr. Hutchins required that I should be kept out of the sun as much as possible…. I was not permitted to playin the streets with the other boys…. I remember perfectly well of chasing my sister Sophonisba (now Mrs. Coleman Sellers) about the room with a paper mask on, and was so small that I ran under the tea table without touching it, or stooping in the least degree…. I made but little progress at school for my sight was so imperfect that I had to have a spelling book of clean print and white paper (at that date a very rare article) and seated as near the window as possible to see to read.11

Rubens’ restricted life soon changed for the better:

“One day when I returned from school I was informed that our family Phycian [sic] was dead, at this inteligence I was so much pleased that I danced about the room with joy. … I then went into the garden and took the watering pot and watered my flowers which I was forbid to do, and after that time I gradually increased in strength & health.”12

From an early age, Rubens had remarkable success at raising both plants and animals. Once, when his favorite bird, a painted bunting, was missing, he learned that his father’s friend, Timothy Matlack, had found the lost pet. Matlack refused to return it to Rubens until Rubens could convince him that it was his. “I told him that if the bird was mine, it would come to me to be corressed [sic], we entered the room together, at once the bird flew to me and lit on my sholder and wanted to feed out of my mouth and remained with me as long as we were in the room, he then acknoledged the bird belonged to me and give it up with much reluctance.”13

Rembrandt Peale probably painted his brother’s portrait sometime during the first six or seven months of 1801. At that time Rembrandt was eagerly seeking portrait commissions and also was attempting to get a patronage job in the administration of President Thomas Jefferson. Later, from midsummer until the end of that year, Rembrandt was preoccupied with his father’s extraordinary project to exhume and restore two almost complete mastodon skeletons found in upstate New York. One of the skeletons was ready for viewing at the museum on Christmas eve, 1801.14 Sometime within the next few years, Rembrandt gave the portrait to James Claypoole Copper, a member of the extended Peale family. Copper was the son of Norris Copper and Elizabeth Claypoole Copper; Elizabeth’s sister Mary was the wife of Rembrandt’s uncle, James Peale. In 1797 Copper’s widowed mother married Timothy Matlack (see the entry for 1947.17.10, p. 72, for the Gallery’s portrait of Matlack, which is attributed to Rembrandt Peale).15 Rembrandt Peale painted Copper’s portrait in about 1806 (private collection).10 Charles Willson Peale described him in 1809 to Rembrandt as “your friend Copper.”17 Copper managed Charles Willson Peale’s estate after Peale’s death in 1827.

Important information about the portrait comes from Rubens’ daughter Mary Jane Peale, to whom Copper gave the painting in 1854, when she was twenty-seven years old. When she recorded the gift in her diary on 20 April, she gave the history of the painting as she knew it, explaining why the geranium was significant and also why Peale was shown with two pairs of glasses. Since Rubens and Rembrandt Peale, Mary Jane’s father and uncle, were both living when Copper gave her the portrait, her comments carry considerable weight:

I called at Mr Coppers—he presented me with a very beautiful portrait of Father when about [age left blank] he is represented with a flower-pot in his hand containing a Waterloo geranium—when it was first introduced & considered very wonderful—a very fine specimen. It was first painted without spectacles & then to make it more perfect it was painted with spectacles on the eyes as he always wore them & then the others were left in order not to mar the picture. When it was painted Uncle Rembrant who painted the picture lived at the head of Mulberry Court. After the picture was finished it was placed in the window filling up the space of the lower sash—presently Father’s pet Dog a large mastiff—came running in to hunt Father & seeing him (as he thought) rushed towards it & would have bounded on him had not the family prevented it. This pleased them all very much. Mr. Copper was a very dear friend of Uncle Rembrants & always admired this picture very much so when Uncle went to Europe he presented this picture to Mr. Copper as something very good—so now before Mr. Copper died he wished to present it to Father’s daughter.18

Copper wrote Mary Jane on 28 April about the gift:

Dear Miss Peale It gives me much pleasure to acknowlege the receipt of a very pleasing note from the daughter of one of my old friends. I have necessarily delayed sending the portrait of your father until to day—I have looked at it many and many a time, with recollections of old times, of a mixed character, both of pleasure and regret, the natural result of the discontinuance of old habits and old associations. May your course through life, my dear young lady, leave you few causes of regret, and a great many thoughts of times well and happily spent. I request to be remembered most kindly to your good father & mother.19

At an unknown date Mary Jane Peale annotated the letter, repeating much of the information that she had written in her diary, but adding some important comments:

This letter was received by me from Mr. James G Copper. The Picture when painted was presented to him … He kept it during his life and when an old man sent for me, because he wanted to see if he liked me, and if he did he was going to give me the picture, so I suppose he liked me because he sent it. uncle Rembrant put on it a new back & cleaned it for me. It was painted on account of the Geranium which was the first one in this country. It was first painted without the glasses on but in the hand—they thought it would look better with them on, and they were painted—but uncle Rembrandt who painted it thought it would spoil the painting of the hand to take the others out, so they did not…. The geranium is a little withered in the painting room.20

Mary Jane Peale repeated and refined these stories in the 1880s. When she included the information in her “List of Pictures I Own, 1884,” she referred to the plant as “the Scarlet Geranium which was the first brought to this country.” She said that the painting “always belonged to Mr Copper.”21 The following year she repeated much of the information in her “List of Pictures I Own; 1885.”22 And in 1901 she again described the painting, this time in a codicil to her will, in which she stated that Peale had painted the portrait for Copper.23

In the portrait, Rubens and the geranium command equal attention. The plant becomes a significant means of characterizing the young man. Despite being named after the seventeenth-century painter Peter Paul Rubens, Rubens Peale by 1801 had demonstrated his skills as a naturalist rather than as an artist. Singled out by his father as a future museum proprietor, Rubens Peale later managed the Peale museums in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New York. In retrospect, he remembered how in 1793, not yet ten years old, he was entrusted with the care of unusual plants: “My Father received from France a number of subjects of Natural History in exchange for those he had sent, consisting of Birds, Reptáis, Insects & Seeds, amongst the latter was a paper of the Red Tomato & Okra. I planted them in potts, and had them growing, supposing them to be flowers, a french gentleman from St. Domingo recognized the Tomato as a favourite fruit of his. I gave the balance of these seeds to Mr. McMahon & Landreth, they soon introduced them in to the Phila, market.”24 His concern for his plants is reflected in letters he wrote to his family after he and Rembrandt left Philadelphia for New York in March 1802. Writing to his father on 2 April, he commented, “I hope my Plants are not negleckted.”25 On 19 April, he wrote his sister Sophonisba: “I think it is about time to take out the plants but I cannot judge for we left Summer in Philadelphia and brought winter along with us.”20

Mary Jane Peale’s comments about the geranium, when combined with information about the history of these plants in America, suggests that the painting may depict a new variety. In 1854 she described the plant as “a Waterloo geranium—when it was first introduced & considered very wonderful—a very fine specimen” and in 1884 as “the Scarlet Geranium which was the first brought to this country.” She also wrote that the portrait was “painted on account of the Geranium which was the first one in this country.” Is this a documented horticultural “first”?

Geraniums were first imported from South Africa to Europe in the early eighteenth century. The plants were introduced to North American horticulture in the mid-1700s. As tropical plants they required greenhouse, or hothouse, care in colder climates. In 1760 English horticulturist Peter Collinson wrote to his friend John Bartram in Philadelphia: “I am pleased thou will build a green-house. I will send thee seeds of Geraniums to furnish it. They have a charming variety, and make a pretty show in a green-house; but contrive and make a stove in it, to give heat in severe weather.”27 To distinguish this type of geranium from the other plants of the Geraniaceae family that were native to Europe or North America, French botanist Charles Louis L’Héritier de Brutelle established the genus Pelargonium in 1787.28 Geraniums became increasingly popular in America in the early nineteenth century. Philadelphia horticulturalist Bernard McMahon listed Pelargonium geraniums in his American Gardener’s Calendar; adapted to the Climates and Seasons of the United States (1806), explaining that “the Genus of Geranium, as constituted by Linnaeus, having become unwieldy by modern discoveries, has been divided into three genera.” He described details of their hothouse care and included instructions for growing seeds and cuttings.29 By 1808, Thomas Jefferson was growing Pelargonium geraniums in the White House.30

The plant in the portrait appears specifically to be a variety of Pelargonium inquinans, whose botanical features include velvety branches, softly textured leaves of five to seven lobes, scarlet flowers with five petals, and a long column of stamens. Its name inquinans (Latin for “staining”) is said to derive from the fact that its leaves turn a rusty or light brown color after they have been touched.31 The plant in the painting appears to have the characteristic brownish red tint on the edges of the lowest leaf.32 This scarlet-flowered geranium was first grown in England in the early lyoos.33 An engraving of the plant published in Hortus Elthamensis (London, 1732), an account by J. J. Dillenius of the gardens of Dr. James Sherard at Eltham, near London, is very similar to the plant in Peale’s painting.34

Philadelphian William Logan apparently ordered seeds of the plant among the vegetable and flower seeds that he acquired in 1768 from James Gordon’s nursery in London.35 In 1806 Bernard McMahon listed Pelargonium inquinans in his American Gardener’s Calendar, giving the plant’s English name as “scarlet-flowered geranium.”36 By this time, however, P. inquinans was already becoming rare, probably because it was the stock plant from which new varieties were produced. A London writer commented that P. inquinansy or “Stainingleaved Crane’s bill,” a “very old Geranium, once very common, is now a scarce plant. There are several fine scarlets under the title of the Nosegay Geraniums, that resemble this species, and are sometimes confounded with it, but upon comparison will be found to differ materially.”37 Years later, American horticulturalist Joseph Breck confirmed this, identifying P. inquinans as “probably the original of the Scarlet varieties.”38

Mary Jane Peale’s claim for the plant as “the first brought to this country” thus seems to refer not to the geranium in general but rather to a particular variety, perhaps of P. inquinans, that became known as the “Waterloo” geranium. In 1834 the “Waterloo geranium” was listed by horticulturalist Robert Buist among forty-nine varieties of the plant.39 Presumably the naming of the plant postdates the Battle of Waterloo (1815) and somehow relates to it.

While the geranium in the painting serves to define Rubens’ interests, and perhaps was intended as the subject of the painting, the two pairs of eyeglasses are critical in characterizing Rubens’ physical state. His poor eyesight was already apparent in early childhood, when it was identified as nearsightedness. Rembrandt later described Rubens’ difficulties:

A younger brother was so near-sighted, that I have seen him drawing, with pencils of his own manufacture—small sticks burnt in the candle and dipped in its grease—looking sometimes with his left eye, and then turning to look with his right eye, the end of his nose was blackened with his greasy charcoal. He was slow in his progress at school…. At ten years of age, he only knew two letters, o and i, never having distinctly seen any others, because his master, holding the book at a distance to suit his own eye, his pupil could see nothing but a blurred line—and only learned by rote.40

One day, a chance use of lenses made for an elderly person showed that Rubens was farsighted, a rare condition for a child but one that normally occurs in the elderly.41 Rubens described the correction to his eyesight in his “Memorandum’s”: “My sight has always been very bad and it was not untill I was about 10 or 12 years of age, that I could procure any glasses that aided my sight. I had to put the book or paper so close to my face that my nose would frequently touch the book. It was always thought that I required concave glasses and every degree of concavity was tried in vain, at last I happened to take a large burning-glass and placed it to my eye and to my great astonishment I saw at a distance every thing distinctly.”42 He wrote that after this discovery, “My father then went with me to Mr. Chs. [John] M’Alister’s store in Chesnut near 2d. st. He had no spectacles of so high a power, & he then set in a frame glasses of 4 ½ inch focus, with these spectacles I could see to read and even to read the signs across the street. This surprised him very much, he had never met with such a case before, (strange to say I still continue to use the glasses of the same focus ever since.) It was not until this discovery was made, that I could read a newspaper or other small print.”43

This story was later confirmed by Rembrandt Peale:

No concave glasses afforded him the least relief; but at Mr. M’Allister’s, the optician, my father being in consultation on his case, there lay on the counter several pairs of spectacles, which had just been tried by a lady ninety years old. Taking up one of these and putting it on, he exclaimed in wild ecstasy, that he could see across the street—”There’s a man!—there’s a woman!—there’s a dog!” These glasses were double convex of four and a half inch focus, and enabled him rapidly to advance in his studies. He has continued to use them, of the same strength, to the present time, being seventy years old—putting them on the first thing in the morning, and taking them off the last thing at night. In London in 1802, he was present at a lecture on optics, by Professor Walker, who declared he had never known another instance of a shortsighted person requiring strong magnifying glasses.44

Rubens’ need for magnification, rather than for concave glasses, was also noted by John Isaac Hawkins, an Englishman who had come to the United States in the 17905 and settled in Philadelphia by 1799. An engineer and prolific inventor, Hawkins worked closely with Charles Willson Peale, inventing the physiognotrace for his museum and the polygraph that Thomas Jefferson used to make copies of his correspondence.45 Hawkins took an interest in the problem of Rubens’ eyesight. In 1826, after he had returned to England, he described Rubens’ case in a published paper that he illustrated with an engraving of a design for trifocals. “I knew twenty-five years ago a very extraordinary exception to the use of concave glasses for nearsighted eyes, in a young man in Philadelphia; he tried concaves without any benefit, but accidentally taking up a pair of strong magnifiers, he found that he could see well through them, and continued the use of strong magnifiers with great advantage.”46

Evidence in the painting itself suggests that Mary Jane Peale was correct in stating that Rubens was first painted with only one pair of glasses, those in his hand. When Rembrandt added the second pair, she said, he did not remove the spectacles from Rubens’ hand because he did not want to “spoil the painting.” The artist has indicated clearly that the pair of glasses that Rubens holds has the strong magnifying lenses that he needed : The sidebar that is folded behind the glasses can be seen through the lenses, which have enlarged the image. (Because the sidebar is folded at its center joint, the loop at the end of the sidebar can also be seen, between the two lenses.)47 The power of these lenses is also indicated by the curve of their surface. A reflection of the studio window is visible in the lower corner of the lens that is farther from Rubens’ hand. By contrast, the glasses that Rubens is wearing do not enlarge his eyes, which suggests that they are not of high magnification. In fact, they seem to be carefully placed so that they do not interrupt the outline of his eyes. Instead only the flesh of his cheeks is visible through them. Rembrandt’s slightly later portrait of Rubens (NPG), painted in 1807, offers a helpful comparison. There, Rembrandt clearly represented Rubens wearing lenses with strong magnification. They quite noticeably enlarge the inner corner of Rubens’ left eye and the outer area of his right eye.48

Since two early portraits of Rubens by his brother Raphaelle Peale do not show him with glasses,49 only one other early portrait provides helpful evidence on the question of which glasses are original to the painting. The portrait of Rubens that Charles Willson Peale included in his painting Exhumation of the Mastodon (1805-1808, PM) depicts Rubens wearing glasses that appear to be of the same shape as those he is holding in the Gallery’s portrait.50 This type of frame, with large lenses and a wide bridge, was commercially available by 1801.51 In contrast, the glasses that Rubens wears, with a narrow bridge, were apparently less common.52 They are similar in shape to glasses made for the Peales and their acquaintances by John McAllister, the man that Rubens credited with assembling his first successful pair of glasses. The spectacles that McAllister made for Thomas Jefferson in 1806 (Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, Inc., Charlottesville) are similar in their narrow bridge, although the shape of the lenses is different.53 The pair that Charles Willson Peale is wearing on his forehead in his self-portrait of about 1804 (PAFA) is also similar, as is the pair that Rubens wears in Rembrandt’s 1807 portrait of him.

McAllister was a Scottish-born Philadelphia merchant and manufacturer who came to Philadelphia from New York in 1781. He opened a business selling canes and walking sticks, and by 1788 was a manufacturer of these and related merchandise. In 1796 he moved into a new shop at 48 Chestnut

Street, near Second Street. He was not an optician and until 1815 did not make spectacles; instead he imported and sold the frames, using lenses made elsewhere. It is believed that he first sold spectacles in 1799; his first advertisement for them appeared in the Philadelphia Gazette and Daily Advertiser in October 1800, at the beginning of his three-year partnership with John Matthews.54 With the exception of this partnership, McAllister’s business was at 48 Chestnut Street until his death in 1830. The earliest written evidence that he supplied spectacles for Charles Willson Peale is from 1806, when he made glasses for Peale and his brother James that were specially designed for miniature painting.55

One modern explanation for the two pairs of glasses was offered by Dr. John R. Levene, an optometrist. Noting that the lenses of the spectacles in Rubens’ hand are larger, and the bridge wider, than those of the pair he is wearing, Levene proposed that Rubens may have worn the pair in his hand lower down on his nose “for reading or close work purposes.” When both were worn at the same time, the combination could have created the effect of bifocals.56 Levene, however, was unaware of Mary Jane Peale’s accounts.57 Having read her statements, art historian John Wilmerding more recently noted a lack of physical evidence in the painting that would support her idea that the second pair of glasses was added. X-radiography revealed no measurable changes in the paint surface or reworking of the area. Wilmerding added that “these spectacles seem so integral and central to the entire effect and meaning of the painting that they must have been part of the intention and composition from the start.”58

Physical evidence is of limited help in solving the question. Close study of the painting did not reveal a reserved space for the glasses or for the reflected light on his cheeks, indicating that Peale did not set aside an area for the glasses when he painted the face. Examination of the surface of the painting revealed instead that the glasses were painted over the brushwork of the lower eyelids. However, this would be the case whether or not the glasses were intended to be there from the beginning, since they could have been painted at the final stage. Billie Follensbee has suggested that there is additional evidence that Mary Jane Peale’s narrative is accurate: the nature of the reflected pools of light on Rubens’ cheeks and the lack of distortion of his eyes as seen through the lenses. These pools of reflected light, which would indicate strong lenses, could easily have been added to a completed portrait. Repainting the eyes to indicate the magnification of the lenses would have been more difficult.59 In showing only the flesh of Rubens’ cheeks through the lenses, Rembrandt would not have had to alter the painting.

When would the glasses have been added? Presumably before Rembrandt Peale gave the painting to James Claypoole Copper. Mary Jane Peale wrote in 1854 that “Mr. Copper … always admired this picture very much so when Uncle went to Europe he presented this picture to Mr. Copper as something very good.”60 In her annotation of his letter, she modified this statement, saying that “The Picture when painted was presented to him.”61 If her comments are accurate, the gift could have been made before Rembrandt Peale’s first voyage abroad in 1802, when he and Rubens took the mastodon skeleton, with other natural history objects and some portraits, to England for exhibition.62 Rembrandt could also have given Copper the portrait before his trip to Europe in 1808, by which time he had painted his second portrait of Rubens, who in that portrait is seen wearing his glasses.63

The initial absence of the pair of spectacles reinforces Mary Jane Peale’s comment that the painting was done primarily to represent the geranium. “The geranium,” as she wrote in her annotation of Copper’s letter, “is a little withered in the painting room.” The sitter’s glance away from the plant places the emphasis on his gesture, touching the rim of the pot, as if to test the moistness of the soil. He is not looking at the plant, and his gesture does not need the sense of sight to confirm the information it receives. One could imagine that Rubens Peale was eager to take the withered geranium out of his brother’s painting room and return it to his own care.

EGM

Notes

1.Mary Jane Peale wrote that after the painting was given to her in 1854, her uncle Rembrandt Peale “put on it a new back & cleaned it for me”; undated annotation on letter from James Glaypoole Copper to Mary Jane Peale, 28 April 1854, AAA.

2.The date of Copper’s acquisition of the painting is unknown. Mary Jane Peale believed that he owned it almost from the time it was painted. In 1854 she wrote that “when Uncle [Rembrandt Peale] went to Europe,” he gave the portrait to Copper. In an undated annotation to Copper’s letter (28 April 1854, AAA), she wrote that “the Picture when Painted was presented to him.” Later, in her will, she said that it was “painted for him by Mr. Rembrandt Peale.” On Copper, see Graff 1893, 79, 101-102, which does not record his life dates. His parents were married in 1774.

3.For Mary Jane Peale’s dates, see the genealogy of the Peale Family in Elam 1967,10, and Miller 1992, 231. For information that she lived in Pottsville, see Hevner, “Rembrandt” 1986,1012.

4.Mary Jane Peale bequeathed the portrait to her nephew Albert Charles Peale, the son of her brother Charles Willson Peale and Harriet Friel Peale; see her will dated 27 June 1901 and the second codicil dated 6 September 1901, Register of Wills, Courthouse, Pottsville, Pennsylvania. (The will is signed and dated 1900, but is referred to in codicils as dated 1901; that date is more likely, given the date of the codicüs.) Albert Peale was one of the executors of Mary Jane Peale’s estate. For his dates, see Charles Coleman Sellers, “Peale Genealogy,” MS, Peale Papers Office, NPG; also, NCAB 1893-, 21:255-256.

5.The painting belonged to Jessie Sellers Colton by 1923, when she lent it to the exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. A label formerly on the painting (in NGA curatorial files) gives her name and address, and states that she was the great-niece of Rubens Peale. For her dates, see Sellers, “Peale Genealogy.”

6.Mrs. Esty owned the portrait when it was reproduced in Sellers 1947 (opp. 147, fig. 12) and lent it in 1955 to the exhibition at Pennsylvania State University. For her birth date see Sellers, “Peale Genealogy”; her date of death is recorded in Social Register Association 1978, 98.

7.Fleischman confirmed his ownership of the portrait in a letter of 19 December 1985 to the Gallery (in NGA curatorial files).

8.Mrs. Woolworth was the owner by 1963, when she lent the painting to the exhibition American Art from American Collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

9.“Fabulous” 1960, 76-77, fig. 74, “loaned by a private collector.”

10.This work has been identified in the past as having been exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1807 and at the Peale Museum in 1808. Peale included “No. 15 Rubens Peale by Rembrandt” in a sketch of the proposed arrangement for the academy in 1807 (Miller, Hart, and Ward 1988, 1047 and note 4; Hevner, “Rembrandt” 1986, 1011-1012). He wrote to Rembrandt in 1808 that he was exhibiting “Your Portrait of … Rubens” at the museum (Miller, Hart, and Ward 1988, 1096, 1098n.15; Hevner, “Rembrandt” 1986, 1012). More recently, however, Hevner noted that she believes that in both cases the portrait exhibited was probably the portrait of Rubens that Rembrandt painted in 1807 (NPG); note dated 20 December 1989 (in NPG curatorial files).

11.Rubens Peale, “Memorandum’s of Rubens Peale and the events of his life &c,” Peale-Sellers Papers, APS; see Miller 1980, fiche VIIB/1A2-G9, 5-6 (pagination added by the editors). Peale’s “Memorandum’s” are a rough chronology of events, beginning with his childhood. While he occasionally gives specific dates, they appear to be approximate. For example, he wrote that he sailed to England “early in the year 1801,” when in fact this voyage occurred in the summer of 1802. Family physician Dr. James Hutchinson was also professor of chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania and secretary of the American Philosophical Society; Miller, Hart, and Ward 1988, 1911.1.

12.Peale, “Memorandum’s,” 6-7.

13.Peale, “Memorandum’s,” 5.

14.For his activities in this period, see Miller, Hart,

1.and Ward 1988, 350-379; and Miller 1992, 47-54.

15.Graff 1893, 79.

16.Miller, Hart, and Ward 1988, 1241n. 2.

17.Miller, Hart, and Ward 1988, 1235; the letter is dated 28 October 1809.

18.Diary of Mary Jane Peale, 1854, Peale-Sellers Papers, APS; partially quoted in Hevner 1987,1996; and Follensbee 1997, 420.

19.Letter from James Claypoole Copper to Mary Jane Peale, 28 April 1854, AAA. The letter was written from 260 Marshall Street, which was Copper’s Philadelphia residence; see McElroy 1854,102.

20.Undated annotation by Mary Jane Peale on letter to her from James Claypoole Copper, 28 April 1854, AAA.

21.Mary Jane Peale, “List of Pictures I Own, 1884,” n.p., no. 34, Peale-Sellers Papers, APS. She added that “I have left it to Albert, in my will.” The portrait is also included in her “List of Pictures owned by Mary J. Peale & where they are,” 1883, Peale-Sellers Papers, APS, as “lo. Father when nineteen with Geranium by Rem Peale/’ located “at home.”

22.Mary Jane Peale, “List of Pictures I Own; 1885,” no. 24, Peale-Sellers Papers, APS (courtesy of Billie Follensbee, who located the document). The list has an annotation, “Rubens Peale,” in the left margin, which was crossed out. Below it was written “Albert Peale.” These notations seem to reflect Mary Jane Peak’s ideas about the recipient of the future bequest.

23.Will dated 27 June 1901, with second codicil dated 6 September 1901, Register of Wills, Court House, Pottsville, Pennsylvania. In the codicil she wrote: “The portrait of Father with the Geranium, the first brought to this country, and painted on account of the plant which shews [sic] that it was in the studio being a little withered. It was at first painted without the spectacles and afterwards put on. given to me by Mr. Copper, painted for him by Mr. Rembrandt Peale.” An undated draft of her will states: “I give to my niece Fannie Carrier the miniature of my Father by Miss Anna Peale afterwards Mrs. Duncan, unless Rubens would prefer it to the portrait of my Father with the Geranium given me by Mr. Copper for whom it was painted,” and “The picture of my Father painted by Uncle Rembrandt for Mr. Copper & given me by him I give to Albert” (Peale-Sellers Papers, APS). A “Last Will and Testament, 1883” that has occasionally been cited as in NGA curatorial files is in fact a partial photocopy of the 1901 will and codicil.

24.Peale, “Memorandum’s,” n. David Landreth came to Philadelphia in 1781 and established the city’s first nursery and seed business in 1784. He was probably Bernard McMahon’s first employer after McMahon arrived in the United States from Ireland in 1796. McMahon established his own business in Philadelphia in 1802; Pennsylvania Horticultural Society 1976, 22.

25.Miller, Hart, and Ward 1988, 421-422.

26.Miller, Hart, and Ward 1988, 427.

27.Darlington 1849, 224-225, letter of 15 September 1760; Hedrick 1950, 88; Pennsylvania Horticultural Society 1976, 24.

28.For example, Thomas Jefferson asked John Bartram, Jr., to include two American geraniums, Geranium maculatum and Geranium gibbosum, in a group of American plants that were sent to him in Paris in 1786; see Jefferson to John Bartram, Jr., 27 January 1786 (Boyd 1954, 228-230). The first, known as wild geranium or spotted crane’s bill, has rose-purple flowers and deeply divided leaves, while the second is a shrubby plant with deep greenish yellow flowers. See Betts 1944, 109-110; Betts and Perkins 1971, 57; Bailey 1900-1902, 2: 640; Clark 1988, 92. On the history and botanical features of geraniums and pelargoniums, see Bailey 1900-1902, 3:1257-1264; Van der Walt and Vorster 1977-1981; Everett 1981, 5: 1462-1465, 8: 2527; and Clark 1988,15-21, 93.

29.McMahon 1806, 83, 160, 355, 419, 444, 615, 618.

30.Adams 1976, 346, no. 600, written by Charles Coleman Sellers; see also 351 for botanical notes on Pelargonium. In December 1808 Margaret Bayard Smith asked Jefferson if he would give her the geranium that he kept in the White House, when he left Washington; he did this at the end of his second term the following spring; see Betts 1944, 382-383.

31.Van der Walt and Vorster 1977-1981, 1:23 and color repro. opp. 23.

32.Some writers believed that the name came about because the plant produced a red stain. Henry Andrews (1805, 2:n.p.) described the source as “the stems, which are beset with glands containing a red juice, which rubbed on paper stains it; from whence its specific title of Inquinans.”

33.Hobhouse 1992, 115; it was grown by Henry Compton (1632-1713), bishop of London, in his garden at Fulham Palace.

34.Dillenius 1732,151-152, and pi. cxxv, opp. 151, titled Geranium Afric. arborescent, Malvae folio pingui, flor e coccíneo Pein. The plate is reproduced in Bailey 1900-1902, 3: 1257, fig. 1698; see also 3: 1261-1262. See also Clark 1988,15.

35.Hobhouse 1992, 269, states that this order included inquinans but gives no source for this information.

36.McMahon 1806, 618.

37.Andrews 1805, 2:n.p.

38.Breck 1866, 310.

39.Buist 1834, no. The only indication of its color is the fact that the list is arranged by color of the flowers, from lightest to darkest, with this variety as number thirty-two out of forty-nine.

40.Peale, “Painter’s Eyes” 1856,164.

41.The first specialist to discuss Rubens’ eyesight in relation to this portrait was Dr. John R. Levene, a professor of optometry; see Levene 1977, 171-173. Opthalmologist Charles E. Letocha, M.D., of York, Pennsylvania, identified Peale’s condition to the Gallery staff in a letter of 4 February 1986 and subsequent correspondence (in NGA curatorial files). See also Letocha 1987, 476 (reference courtesy of Billie J. A. Follensbee). The most recent study of this portrait in relation to Peale’s eyesight and need for glasses is Follensbee 1997.

42.Peale, “Memorandum’s,” 7. A burning-glass is a converging lens used to focus the sun’s rays on an object so as to produce heat or combustion.

43.Peale, “Memorandum’s,” 7-8.

44.Peale, “Painter’s Eyes,” 1856,164-165.

45.On Hawkins, see Levene 1977, 166-189; and Miller, Hart, and Ward 1988.

46.Hawkins 1827, 39I-392J ne identified the “young man” as Rubens Peale. The reference is quoted in Levene 1977, 171, where Hawkins’ illustration, an engraving of his trifocals, is reproduced on 184, as figure 7.1.

47.The folded sidebar is commented on by Levene 1977, 172; and Wilmerding, “Young Masters” 1988, 86.

48.The portrait bears two inscribed dates, 1807 and 1821; the earlier date was not visible until the painting was cleaned in 1989 after it was acquired by the National Portrait Gallery. The painting was therefore incorrectly dated in Hevner, “Rembrandt” 1986, 1012, and is correctly dated in Hevner 1992, 260, fig. 124.

49.The first shows Rubens dressed as the mascot of McPherson’s Blues (c. 1795, private collection; illustrated in Miller, Hart, and Ward 1988, color pi. 2, opp. 344); the second is a profile watercolor (c. 1805, NMAA;Miles 1994, ii2, repro.). Among later portraits, Anna Claypoole Peale’s miniature of 1822 (Bolton-Smith 1976,255, no. 212, repro.) and Mary Jane Peale’s portrait of 1855 ( Elam 1967, 138, no. 223, repro. 116) show him with glasses, while Rembrandt Peal’s portrait of 1834 ( Wadsworth Athenaeum) does not (Hevner 1985,76-77, no. 23, repro.).

50.On this painting, see Miller 1981, 47-68.

51.Numerous examples can be found in collections that document the history of eyeglasses; see Poulet 1978, 1: 142-144,148-150, 2: 217.

52.They appear less frequently in collections of eyeglasses. W. Poulet (1978, 1 : 155) illustrates as B 1077 a similar pair of frames with extendable sidebars, c. 1800 (they are not exactly the same, since they have rectangular lenses).

53.On these glasses, see the letter of John McAllister to Thomas Jefferson, 14 November 1806, Thomas Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress (transcript in NGA curatorial files, provided by Dr. Charles E. Letocha); Miller, Hart, and Ward 1988, 1006-1008, and note 1. Jefferson’s glasses are illustrated in Stein 1993,430.

54.Information on McAllister is from Danzenbaker 1968,1-4; correspondence of Dr. Charles E. Letocha, 4 February and 24 February 1986 (in NGA curatorial files); Letocha 1987,476; and research notes compiled by Deborah Jean Warner, curator, Physical Sciences Collections, NMAH.

55.John McAllister to Thomas Jefferson, 14 November 1806, Thomas Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress (transcript in NGA curatorial files, provided by Charles Letocha). McAllister’s bank books for 1796-1797, 1800-1801, and 1807-1809 (Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Delaware) were checked for references to members of the Peale family, but none was found.

56.Levene 1977,172.

57.Follensbee 1997,58.

58.Wilmerding, “Young Masters” 1988, 85.

59.Follensbee 1997, 420-421.

60.Diary of Mary Jane Peale, 1854, Peale-Sellers Papers, APS.

61.Undated annotation by Mary Jane Peale on letter to her from James Claypoole Copper, 28 April 1854, AAA.

62.See Miller, Hart, and Ward 1988, 419-474, 485-603 (correspondence between Charles Willson Peale and his sons from January until their return in November 1803, interspersed with other Peale correspondence), 624n.2 (noting their return). See also Miller 1992, 57-71. Lillian Miller (1992, 58-59) suggests that Rembrandt took the painting to London in 1802, intending it as the pendant to his similarly sized self-portrait with the mammoth tooth, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1803. Carol Hevner (1992, 255, citing Graves 1905-1906, 6:87) indicates that the second portrait that Rembrandt exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1803 was a “Portrait in Chalk,” which does not describe the portrait of Rubens.

63.See note 10 above for discussion of the possible exhibition of the portrait at the PAFA in 1807 and at the PM in 1808.

References

•1947—Sellers: fig. 12, opp. 147.

•1956—Rendezvous: 2 repro., 28, no. 82 (not exhibited).

•1965—Feld 1283, repro.

•1971—Gerdts and Burke: 36, repro. 34, figs. 2-12.

•1976—Adams: 346, no. 600, repro.

•1976—Pennsylvania Horticultural Society: 24, repro. 27.

•1977—Levene: 171-172.

•1981—Gerdts: 3, color pl. 3, 62-63.

•1984—Foshay: 32-34, repro.

•1985—Hevner: 20, 21 fig. 5, 103n. 8.

•1986—Hevner, “Rembrandt”: 1010-1013, color repro.

•1986—Hevner, “Rubens”: 114-116, fig. 1 (color).

•1987—Hevner: 1996 and color repro., cover.

•1988—Miller, Hart, and Ward: 1047n. 4, 1096, 1098n. 15, 1241n. 2, color pl. 6, between 344 and 345.

•1988—Wilmerding, American Masterpieces: 66, no. 10; 67, color repro.

•1988—Wilmerding, “Young Masters”: 72-93.

•1992—Hevner: 255.

•1992—Miller: 57-60, fig. 22, 160, color pi. 4, 243.

•1992—NGA: 256, repro.

•1996—Miller: 35 (repro), 51-52, 309.

•1997—Follensbee: 417-424, repro.

Orbis staff ophthalmologist, Dr Anna Maria Mohr. by Orbis - Giving the gift of sight

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Orbis staff ophthalmologist, Dr Anna Maria Mohr escorts a patient to a post-operative assessment the day after her cornea transplant.

Cambodia: Improving hospitals and healthcare helps save lives by World Bank Photo Collection

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The 16 Makara hospital in Cambodia's remote Preah Vihear province is equiped with modern equipment. In this photo, an opthalmologist is performing a comprehensive eye exam. The maintenance of 16 Makara is supported by the World Bank and other international donors through the Health Sector Support Program and the Cambodia Second Health Sector Support Program. Preah Vihear province, Cambodia. Photo: Chhor Sokunthea / World Bank

Find out more about these projects: Health Sector Support Project and Cambodia Second Health Sector Support Program

Close-Up of Portrait of Rubens Peale with a Geranium by Alec Frazier

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