The most exciting scientific find of the period was Charles Willson Peale’s exhumation in 1801 near Newburgh, New York, of the bones of the mastodon, or mammoth. Peale displayed his mammoth in his celebrated museum and in 1806 painted a marvelous picture of what was perhaps the first organized exhumation in American history. Peale’s discovery electrified the country and put the word mammoth
on everybody’s lips. A Philadelphia baker advertised the sale of mammoth bread.
In Washington a mammoth eater
ate forty-two eggs in ten minutes. And under the leadership of the Baptist preacher John Leland, the ladies of Cheshire, Massachusetts, late in 1801 sent to President Jefferson a mammoth cheese,
six feet in diameter and nearly two feet thick and weighing 1,230 pounds.
Gallery
American Artists | 6 albums
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Works by John Singleton Copley American Painter, 1738—1815 » view » |
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Works by Charles Willson Peale American Painter, 1741—1827 » view » |
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Works by Rembrandt Peale American Painter, 1778—1860 » view » |
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Works by Gilbert Stuart American Painter, 1755—1828 » view » |
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Works by John Trumbull American Painter, 1756—1843 » view » |
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Other American Artists Mather Brown • Ralph Earl • James Peale • Charles Peale Polk • William Rush • Edward Savage • Thomas Sully • John Vanderlyn • Benjamin West • Other American Works » view » |
European Artists | 8 albums
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Works by Antonio Canova Italian Sculptor, 1757—1822 » view » |
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Works by Giuseppe Ceracchi Italian Sculptor, 1751—1801 » view » |
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Works by Thomas Gainsborough English Portrait and Landscape Painter, 1727—88 » view » |
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Works by Jean-Antoine Houdon French Sculptor, 1741—1828 » view » |
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Works by Robert Edge Pine English Painter, 1730—88 » view » |
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Works by Joshua Reynolds English Portrait Painter, 1723—92 » view » |
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Works by James Sharples & Family English Painters — James (c. 1751—1811); Ellen (1769—1849); James Jr. (c. 1788—1839) » view » |
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Works by John Wollaston English Portrait Painter, c. 1710—c. 1775 » view » |
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Other European Artists Portraits of Americans, British, French, Germans, and Spanish » view » |