The Portrait of Mrs. Rubens Peale, née Eliza Burd Patterson, circa 1820, by Charles Willson Peale joins Winterthur Museum’s collection of early 19th-century portraiture painted around the time of the subject’s marriage to Peale’s son, Rubens Peale. Peale noted in a letter to his younger son, Titian Peale, “I have painted a striking portrait of her, happy in the expression.”
Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827), Portrait of Mrs. Rubens Peale, née Eliza Burd Patterson, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; ca. 1820. Oil on canvas. Winterthur Museum 2026.0006.001 A, B.
When Peale painted his daughter-in-law, Eliza, he had been producing portraits of fashionable society for more than 50 years. For Peale, portrait painting was a business but also a matter of civic and even moral duty, evident in his remark, “I wish never to paint the Portrait of a bad man, as none but the virtuous deser[v]e to be remembered.” George Washington sat for him more than seven times, and Peale produced some of the most memorable images of the major players of the Revolutionary War. Painted during his retirement years at his Belfield estate in Germantown, near Philadelphia, Portrait of Mrs. Rubens Peale represents a late work by Peale, when the artist worked in a warmer palette, painting primarily family portraits.
Eliza appears in a fashionable empire waist dress in white silk featuring a regal lace collar that frames her face beneath a crown of dark curls, her bangs parted to reveal her “noble” brow. Her gently cupped hand grasps the folds of her imported Kashmiri red wool shawl with a gold-threaded border, perhaps a nod to Eliza’s family fortune in the woolen manufacturing business. The Patterson’s established a grist mill on Cresheim Creek where it emptied into the Wissahickon River, producing kersey, a coarse wool and satinet.
This portrait was part of a remarkable group of eight works purchased at auction by Winterthur Museum in April 2026. Nearly all works came from the collection of artist Mary Jane Peale, which descended through the Peale family. The works add to the museum’s already distinguished Peale family holdings and allow for a fuller interpretation of the Peale family of artists and museum professionals.
The portrait will be premiered at the upcoming Winterthur exhibition Becoming Peale, scheduled to run September 18, 2027, through January 9, 2028. The museum’s collection of Peale art and archival treasures, representing the multigenerational artist family, will be assembled for the first time on a large scale. The exhibition harnesses a growing interest in the art of the Peale women and Moses Williams by bringing their contributions into closer view. —
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