John Beale Bordley
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 200.8 x 147.4 cm (79 1/16 x 58 1/16 in.) framed: 215 x 161.6 x 7.6 cm (84 5/8 x 63 5/8 x 3 in.)
Classification
Painting
Department
CAB
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of The Barra Foundation, Inc.
Accession Number
1984.2.1
Art Historical Context
Behold *John Beale Bordley*, commanding 1770 oil-on-canvas portrait by Charles Willson Peale, one of colonial America's foremost painters. Measuring nearly 80 by 58 inches, this work captures the sitter—a prominent figure likely of social and intellectual stature—in the grand tradition of 18th-century portraiture where size and detail conveyed prestige and character. Painted on the eve of the American Revolution, the piece reflects Peale's mastery of realistic rendering and his affiliation with the emerging American Enlightenment. Oil on canvas allowed for luminous skin tones, rich fabrics, a...
About the Artist
Charles Willson Peale · 1741–1827
Charles Willson Peale (1741–1827) was an American painter, museum founder, naturalist, and inventor who became the most important American portraitist of the Revolutionary era and a central figure in the cultural life of the young republic. Born in Queen Anne's County, Maryland, he initially trained as a saddler before turning to painting, studying briefly with John Singleton Copley in Boston and ...