The Artist in His Museum, 1822

Oil on canvas; 103 3/4 x 79 7/8 in. (263.5 x 202.9 cm.) Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA.

In a long day-lit room in the Philadelphia State House (now Independence Hall), Peale designed his Philadelphia Museum with a grid system of cabinet dioramas and cases for his wildlife specimens; above them he installed his Gallery of Famous Men.

With a theatrical gesture, Peale presents himself as a storyteller, carnival barker, master of ceremonies, salesman, and modern-day Noah gathering natural resources. He is shown creating order, and ultimately, providing salvation through the rational display of educational artifacts.

Racial prejudice worked to perpetuate American slavery, even if it was not essential to sustain the institution. Slavery, serfdom, and peonage had existed elsewhere without racial connotations. Indeed, bondage had been so historically ubiquitous one might well ask why, by the 1760’s, it had come to trouble so many white Americans so much. The answer lies in part — and this part help explain why people like Mason did not act more aggressively on their concerns — in the reservations many whites felt about living alongside members of a supposedly inferior race, whether slave or free. The problem was inherent in American slavery, and emancipation, by undermining white control, would only make it worse.

— Jeff Broadwater

George Mason: Forgotten Founder (2006)