(b Bucks Co., PA, 22 Feb 1778; d Philadelphia, 3 Oct 1860). Painter, museum keeper and writer, brother of (3) Raphaelle Peale. He began to paint at an early age, completing a Self-portrait at age 13 (priv. col., see Hevner and Miller, p. 31) and at 17 a portrait of George Washington (1795; Philadelphia, PA, Hist. Soc.). Rembrandt’s career falls into four periods. The first includes his early portraits, such as the charming Rubens with a Geranium (1801; Washington, DC, N.G.A.) and the two impressive renditions of Thomas Jefferson (1800, Washington, DC, State Dept; 1805, New York, NY Hist. Soc.), which show the influence of his father and of his studies in England during 1802–3. Paintings from the years following his return from France in 1810 and his discovery of encaustic are more polished and Neo-classical: Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (1810; Philadelphia, PA, Coll. Phys., Mutter Mus.), Isaac McKim (c. 1815; Baltimore, Mus. & Lib. MD Hist.) and General Samuel Smith (1817–18; Baltimore, MD, Peale Mus.). During his middle years Rembrandt sought to establish an artistic reputation with heroic works such as George Washington, Patriae Pater (c. 1824; Philadelphia, PA Acad. F.A.), The Court of Death (1820; Detroit, MI, Inst. A.) and the sumptuous double portrait of his daughters, The Sisters: Eleanor and Rosalba Peale (1826; New York, Brooklyn Mus.). From the 1840s Rembrandt concentrated on painting copies of his Washington and from the Old Masters.

Part of the Peale family

• Peale, Rembrandt
  • Philadelphia, §2: Art life and organization
  • USA, §XIV, 1: Museums: Early developments, mid-18th century to the mid-19th
  • patrons and collectors
    • Hone, Philip
  • pupils
    • Peale: (8) Sarah Miriam Peale
  • teachers
    • West, Benjamin, §1(iv): Later career, 1805–20, and reputation