The first individual pictured below is Charles Wilson Peale, an artist from the time of the Revolution. The second portrait was painted by Charles and shows his son Rembrandt. The third image was painted by Rembrandt Peale, and shows his brother Rubens, a botanist. The geranium he is holding is claimed to he the first ever grown in the New World. Rembrandt and Rubens founded and managed the Peale Museum in Baltimore, which was the first building in the Americas built as a museum.
Image: “Self-Portrait” by Charles Wilson Peale (c. 1791). From the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; frame conserved with funds from the Smithsonian Women's Committee.
Image: “Rembrandt Peale” by Charles Wilson Peale (1818). From the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Donald Hamilton Workman in memory of his father, James Clark Workman, and his grandfather, James Henry Workman.
Image: “Rubens Peale with a Geranium” by Rembrandt Peale (1801). From the National Gallery of Art, Patrons’ Permanent Fund.
The final image is a painting by Charles Wilson Peale of two of his other sons, Raphaelle and Titian I. Raphaelle, at the bottom of the steps, is the first professional American still-life painter. Titian I became an ornithologist, before passing away at the age of 18.
Charles Wilson Peale had seventeen children who he named after artists and scientists, including Charles Linnaeus Peale, Benjamin Franklin Peale, Sophonisba Angusciola Peale, and Titian Peale II.
Image: “Staircase Group (Portrait of Raphaelle Peale and Titian Ramsay Peale I)” by Charles Wilson Peale (1795). From the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
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