David Wiley
Medium
Painting
Classification
Painting
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Accession Number
NPG.87.244
Tags
About this artwork
(Schwarz Gallery, Philadelphia); purchased 1987 NPG
Art Historical Context
**David Wiley** (c. 1801) is a compelling portrait by Charles Peale Polk (1767–1822), member of the esteemed Peale family of early artists. Captured around the turn of the th century, this painting David Wiley, a multifaceted figure symbolized through tags like librarian, teacher merchant, minister, and surveyor. Seated with a drape and chair, he holds a journal and is by scientific apparatus, evoking the Enlightenment-era ideal of the Renaissance man—blending intellect, faith, commerce, and exploration post-Revolutionary America. Pol, nephew of portraitist Charles Willson Pe, worked in a fol...