It links the artist's autobiography to his painting, illuminating the man, his art, and his times. Peale emerges for the first time as that particularly American phenomenon: the self-made man."

Charles Willson Peale was not only one of our finest early American painters, but also the founder of the world's first popular museum of natural science and art.

"Beyond conveying the warmth and charm of Peale's life, Mr. Sellers biography provides the most complete record available of the artist's achievements and of the Peale family. The many pictures that the author gathered for this volume illustrate Peale's scientific and patriotic endeavors as well as his artistic ventures- many illustrations are reproduced here for the first time". -- from book jacket.

"This book is mind-blowing. Nemerov is a groundbreaking thinker in his field."—John Wilmerding, Princeton University "This is a book for all serious Americanists."—Jay Fliegelman, author of Declaring Independence "Each haunting and delicately wrought canvas expands as Nemerov writes about it, so that his interpretive work both mirrors and supplements the wondrous intensity of the paintings themselves."—Ellen Handler Spitz, Museums of the Mind "Underneath their apparent simplicity, Raphaelle Peale's still lifes glow mysteriously in the dark light of their making. Peale transformed the common items of the early-nineteenth-century kitchen and market into explorations of the American unconscious. Now, writing as coolly and lucidly as Peale painted, Alexander Nemerov has unpeeled those still lifes in a tour de force of formalistic analysis. Through close interrogation of these small, hermetic images, Nemerov's book reveals the whole world of early America, in the process bringing us as close as possible to the genius of Raphaelle Peale."—David C. Ward, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. "This is a dazzling study, lively and imaginative, of an important body of work. Nemerov's novel arguments regarding still life in general and Raphaelle Peale in particular reveal much about the art, the man, and the times. It is a thoughtful and provocative book, certain to generate interest and debate. "—Charles C. Eldredge, Hall Distinguished Professor of American Art and Culture, University of Kansas "A triumph of interpretation! Not since Michael Fried's groundbreaking account of Thomas Eakins has a critic so reimagined the very terms by which we see painting. Nemerov's account singlehandedly catapults a painter we had previously considered to be interesting, but minor, into the forefront of discussions about American art during the early National Period. The Body of Raphaelle Peale will no doubt spark the beginning of an exciting revival of scholarship in American Romantic painting."—Bryan J. Wolf, author of Romantic Re-Vision

A true story of six generations of an African American family in Maryland. Based on paintings, photographs, books, diaries, court records, legal documents, and oral histories, the book traces Yarrow Mamout and his in-laws, the Turners, from the colonial period through the Civil War to Harvard and finally the present day.

A former slave named Moses reminisces about his famous owner, Charles Willson Peale, and the intrigue surrounding Peale's son's suspicious death.