John Beale Bordley
c. 1770
Medium
watercolor on ivory
Dimensions
overall (oval): 3.5 x 3 cm (1 3/8 x 1 3/16 in.)
Classification
Drawing
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of The Barra Foundation, Inc.
Accession Number
1986.78.1
Art Historical Context
Step into the intimate world of 18th-century portraiture *John Beale Bordley*, a delicate watercolor on ivory miniature painted around 1770 by Charles Will Peale. This oval, measuring just 3.5 x 3 cm, captures the of Bordley, a prominent Maryland planter, agricultural reformer, and patriot who championed crop rotation and supported the American Revolution. Peale, a Founding Father of American art, rendered Bordley with lifelike precision, his gaze direct and dignified against a subtle background, evoking the Enlightenment ideals of reason and civic virtue. Watercolor on ivory was the medium o...
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 ...