Painter. He was an American portrait and historical painter, who was named in honor of the Dutch painter Rembrandt. Credited with at least 600 paintings, he is remembered for his portraits of notable people of the American Revolutionary era including the first President of the United States George Washington and the third President of the United States Thomas Jefferson. Since he was the son of the American patriot and painter Charles Wilson Peale, his art training began at home. Peale painted his first self-portrait at age 13, and by age 17, he painted a well-received from-life portrait of George Washington. His father had painted "Washington at Princeton" earlier the same year in 1791. By the end of his nearly 70-year career, he had painted at least 80 portraits of Washington. He traveled to Europe several times studying the old masters' paintings in various museums. This included in 1803 the Royal Academy in London. Peale was offered the post of court painter to Napoleon but declined. On August 15, 1814, Peale launched his first museum and portrait gallery, the Peale Museum, as soon as he arrived in Baltimore, Maryland. Leaving Baltimore, he relocated to New York City to do commissions and by 1826 to Boston. After living in Washington D.C. and Charleston, South Carolina as an itinerant artist with debts, he made Philadelphia his permanent home in 1831. A pioneer in art education in the United States, he was a co-founder of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1805 and one of the founders of the National Academy of Design in 1826. His 1823 painting of George Washington in full military uniform has been on display over the fireplace in the Oval Office at the White House, first by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and again with George H. W. Bush. In 1824, he painted a portrait of Washington looking through an oval window, "Patriae Pater." Some critics devalued the portrait as it was painted after Washington's death, yet Peale had personally known Washington. In 1828 he displayed the painting at Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze in Florence, Italy. While in Italy, he painted copies of Renaissance and Baroque masters to supplement his income. In 1832 "Patriae Pater" was purchased by Congress and is displayed in the Old Senate Chamber in the United States Capitol. In 1833 he returned to England, which would be his last trip to Europe. To supplement his income by 1840, he painted at least seventy-nine replicas of "Patriae Pater." His style of painting started very much like his father's sculptural Neoclassical style, but later his style was strongly influenced by French neoclassicism. For students, he authored the textbooks "Graphics: A Manual of Drawing and Writing for the Use of Schools and Families" in 1835 and "Introduction to Notes of the Painting Room" in 1852 along with several pamphlets to be used at art exhibitions. Besides Washington and Jefferson's portraits, he painted the 9th United States President William Henry Harrison and First Lady Dolly Madison's portraits. At the age of 20, he married Eleanor May Short in St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Philadelphia, and the couple had nine children before her death. In 1840 he married the widow Harriet Christina Cany, a student of his and later, a portrait painter