February 13th 2025 Auction
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AN IMPORTANT ORIGINAL MINIATURE WATERCOLOR BY ONE OF AMERICA’S MOST RENOWN REVOLUTIONARY ERA ARTISTS, CHARLES WILLSON PEALE.   

This stunning artwork was originally featured in Heritage Auction’s “CHARLES WILLLSON PEALE- ARTIST OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION” event, in which Heritage confirmed that this art is “...actually in ( Charles Willson Peale’s ) hand... from what is believed to be the largest and perhaps finest collection of Peale miniature portraits in private hands.” In 2007, Heritage had a pre-auction estimate on this lot at $20,000- $30,000.

This watercolor is all the more historic as it dates to 1777 and depicts Ebenezer Crosby surgeon to George Washington’s guards during the American Revolution. This watercolor is delicately painted on ivory by Peale and encased in a gold rectangular frame measuring 3 x 4. The portrait is accompanied by an archive of information on Dr. Ebenezer Crosby along the the history of this historic item.

Charles Willson Peale was born on April 15, 1741, in Queen Anne’s County, Maryland. He was the first son of Charles Peale and Margaret Triggs. His father had been a forger and a thief, who barely escaped execution, before being banished from England to America because of his crimes. The elder Peale, despite his crimes, had been a member of the bourgeois class in England and was a graduate of Cambridge. He desperately wanted to retain his status in America. He attempted to become a slaveholder and a member of the landed gentry but was denied appointments that would allow him to accrue the necessary capital. Thus, he was forced to be a schoolteacher for the rest of his life, never achieving his desired success. At death, his estate was valued at only 50 pounds. Charles Willson Peale was only eight years old at the time of his father’s death. His father’s death threw the younger Peale, his mother, and his four siblings into economic turmoil. The struggling family moved to Annapolis to be supported by his mother.

It was in Annapolis that Peale would get his first experience as an artisan. He worked for Nathan Waters, a prominent Annapolis saddle-maker, from 1754 to 1761. Waters encouraged Peale throughout their time together, and Peale wrote about himself in the third person later that, “The Youth was disposed to be industrious and the master to encourage that industry.” It was at this time that Peale became interested in painting. In 1763 he traded a saddle to study briefly under American portraitist John Hesselius. He continued seeking out mentors within the colonies studying under John Singleton Copley. Eventually, his friends raised enough money for Peale to travel to England to study painting under the tutelage of Benjamin West. He remained in England for three years, afterward returning to America and becoming an established artist.

In 1776, Peale became fascinated with the leaders of the revolution and the revolutionary cause itself, so he moved to the new nation’s capital, Philadelphia. It was during this move that Peale produced his first portraits of notable Americans while also enlisting in the revolutionary cause, joining the city militia. The artist turned soldier fought in the battles of Trenton and Princeton, eventually receiving the rank of captain. By 1779 he was serving in the Pennsylvania State Assembly and had returned to seriously painting.

Peale was one of the most prolific painters of the American Revolution, depicting nearly every notable revolutionary figure, including Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Jefferson. He portrayed George Washington nearly sixty times—for which, he is arguably most famous. However, Peale was not just a portrait painter but was also admired for his skill in the “trompe l’oeil” style.

Besides painting, Peale is notable for starting one of the first serious American museums. After organizing the first U.S. scientific expedition in 1801, Peale decided to create what became The Philadelphia Museum. A museum dedicated to the biology of the planet and specifically the biology of the American continent. The museum was the first in America to display mastodon bones, which were known at that time as “Mammoth bones.” Peale worked on mounting the bones in three-dimensional space, increasing the realism and influencing how all ancient bones were to be displayed from then on. The museum also adopted Linnaean taxonomy, which brought the museum scientific respect locally and abroad, as the exhibits were meant to be scientific rather than fantastical. The museum brought European attention to the conditions of the American continent, but also the new country’s academic prowess.

Peale fathered a large family; he married three times and had sixteen children across his first two marriages. Peale named all his children, male and female, for his favorite artists. He trained all his children in painting, three of his sons became famous artists, Rembrandt Peale, Raphaelle Peale, and Titian Peale. These three men all took different paths in the art world. Rembrandt, like his father, was notable mostly for his realistic portraits of the founding fathers. Raphaelle is regarded as the first still-life painter in American history. Titian focused accurately on scientific illustrations, combining his father’s passions for art and science.

Charles Willson Peale is an essential figure of the early American period. He was a genuinely American story—rising from nothing to achieve great fame and importance. He also embodies the enlightenment spirit of the Renaissance man, as an artist, scientist, and even inventor. Peale is often remembered most for his paintings, but his impact on American culture is much more profound than portraits.

Ebenezer Crosby was only fifteen years old when his father died, and was thus left somewhat free to shift for himself, although his mother, Ann Belcher, still survived. He became a student at Harvard College, in the town where his grandfather was born, and in 1777 he was graduated there.

He had adopted the medical profession, and as the Revolutionary War was in progress, and Cambridge itself was the centre of operations, he had already found employment as Surgeon in the Army. In 1779, Dr. Crosby signed a certificate in defense of Dr. John Morgan, who had been removed from the post of Director General of the Hospital and Physician-in-Chief of the American Army, which states that in 1775 and 1776, and until the evacuation of Boston, he, Dr. Crosby, was employed as a Mate in the Hospital Department at Cambridge.

On December 2, 1779, he applied to the Massachusetts House of Representatives for certain allowances. His petition was granted nearly a year later, viz.: on November 23, 1780, in the following terms: "Whereas Ebenezer Crosby, Surgeon of the Corps of Guards, has represented to this Court that he has not received any clothing from this State, and that he is in great want thereof, "Therefore, Resolved, That the Board of War be directed, and they are hereby directed, to deliver to Ebenezer Crosby, Surgeon of the Corps of Guards, such articles of clothing as he is entitled to receive by the resolution of Congress of the 20th of November, 1780," etc. The Corps of Guards to which we find him attached was formed by an order of General Washington before Boston, dated March 11, 1776, to take the place of Lieutenant-Colonel Knowlton's "Connecticut Rangers," against whom the jealousy of the other regiments had been aroused. It is highly probable that Dr. Crosby served first with these rangers, as Heitman in his "Historical Register of Officers " assigns him to Connecticut. The Corps of Guards was designed to act as a guard for the commander-in-chief. The order organizing them directs that the men should be chosen from various regiments, of a certain height, and "to be handsomely and well made." It consisted of a major's command, one hundred and eighty men. The corps was reorganized at Morristown, New Jersey, in 1777, none but native Americans being chosen. The number was considerably increased, and part of them were mounted as cavalry. Their uniform was a blue coat with white facings; white waistcoat and breeches, black stock and black half gaiters, and a round hat with blue and white feather. The corps never numbered over 250 men, and it accompanied General Washington throughout the war. It was no small honor for Dr. Crosby, when only twenty-three or four years of age, to be commissioned surgeon of this corps. That he remained attached to it until he retired from the service is to be gathered from the fact that when after the war he joined the Society of the Cincinnati, he signed the roll as "Surgeon of his Excellency's Guards."

While following the commander-in-chief from headquarters to headquarters, Ebenezer Crosby prosecuted his studies in some way or other. He took the degree of Bachelor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in 1780 and that of Master of Arts at Harvard in 1782; at the same time, Yale awarded him the honorary degree of Master of Arts. It is likely that in those unsettled times residence at the college was not required from those in active service.

In 1783, at the close of the war, Washington bade farewell to his officers at New York, and Dr. Crosby, who had long been wandering far from his native State, began the practice of his profession in that city. On May 1, 1784, he was paid $303.63 for medicine and attendance on the troops in New York." He was only thirty years old, but he soon became a man of prominence in his new home.

With One of a Kind Collectibles LOA

Charles Willson Peale Original Watercolor
Charles Willson Peale Original Watercolor
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