John Philip de Haas
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 127 x 101.6 cm (50 x 40 in.) framed: 149.9 x 124.5 x 9.5 cm (59 x 49 x 3 3/4 in.)
Classification
Painting
Department
CAB
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Andrew W. Mellon Collection
Accession Number
1942.8.9
Art Historical Context
Charles Willson Peale'sJohn Philip de Haas* (1772) is a striking oil-on-canvas portrait measuring 50 x 40 inches, now housed in the National Gallery of Art's W. Mellon Collection. at the height of colonial America's pre-Revolutionary fervor, it captures the namesake sitter—likely a prominent Philadelphia merchant—with Peale's signature realism and attentiveness to character. Peale, a polymath artist, naturalist, and founder of first public museum, mastered portraiture in the Anglo-American tradition, drawing from influences like John Singleton Copley. His works often celebrated the emerging m...
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 ...