Still Life with Fruit on a Tabletop

One of the founders of the still-life painting tradition in America, James Peale was born in Chestertown, Maryland. The youngest of five children, he worked as a saddle maker and cabinetmaker before studying art with his brother, Charles Willson Peale. While serving as an officer in the Continental Army during the American Revolution, James Peale painted two portraits of George Washington. After the war, he settled in Philadelphia and became known for making watercolor portrait miniatures on ivory. Eventually, he developed problems with his eyesight from working on such a small scale and switched to painting still lifes. His work was shown at his brother's Peale Museum in Baltimore and in Philadelphia at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts