Artist

Mather Brown

Self-Portrait, 1812
American painter, active in England; 1761—1831.

John Singleton Copley

Self-Portrait, 1770—71
American painter, principally active in London after 1774; 1738—1815.

Ralph Earl

Landscape View of Old Bennington, 1798
American painter; 1751—1801.

Jean-Antoine Houdon

Self-Portrait, c. 1780
French sculptor who sometimes created his works from life-masks; 1741—1828.

Charles Willson Peale

Self-Portrait, 1795
American painter, soldier; created first American museum; 1741—1827.

Rembrandt Peale

Self-Portrait, 1828
American painter, son of Charles Willson Peale; 1778—1860.

Paul Revere

Paul Revere, 1768
Artisan, Boston revolutionary, militia soldier, foundryman; 1735—1818.

William Rush

Self-Portrait, 1822
American sculptor; 1756—1833.

Gilbert Stuart

Self-Portrait, c. 1785
American painter of quintessential portraits, including George Washington; 1755—1828.

Thomas Sully

Portrait of the Artist, 1821
British-born painter, mainly of portraits, extended the iconography of the Revolution and the Founding Fathers into the 19th century; 1783—1872.

Charles Willson Peale, despite his devotion to the taxonomic and contemplative majesty of the natural world, nevertheless loved novelties and used all sorts of amusements to attract customers to his museum. He eventually resorted to hiring a popular musical performer who played five different instruments simultaneously, using all parts of his body. Following Peale’s death the museum passed into the enterprising hands of P. T. Barnum, becoming part of his traveling circus — a romantic ending for an Enlightenment institution.

— Gordon S. Wood
Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789–1815 (2009)