Brief Biography-Charles Willson Peale of Pennsylvania was a saddler, watchmaker, and taxidermist until he was twenty-six when he took instruction from John Singleton Copley in Boston. In 1767, he travelled to London and studied under Benjamin West. He was involved in the War of Independence and was a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly. In 1780 he gave up politics, and two years later, he opened the first American art gallery in Philadelphia, and in 1805 he established the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Peale painted several notable figures of the war and became the foremost American portraitist of his time. Of his three wives, he had seventeen children, of which there were many artists, some aptly named Raphaelle, Rubens, Sophonisba, Titian, Rembrandt, Angelica, and Rosalba. His two sons, Raphaelle and Rembrandt, were the most noted artists of his family, and his brother James was a successful miniaturist painter of still-life. Charles Willson Peale painted the first of many portraits of President George Washington.