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.
Thomas Gainsborough (1727—88)
Oil on canvas; 127.5 x 107 cm. National Trust, Knole, Kent, England.
Oil on canvas; Height: 244 cm (96.1 in). Width: 152.4 cm (60 in). Kenwood House, English Heritage; London, England.
Oil on canvas, feigned oval; 29 7/8 in. x 24 7/8 in. (760 mm x 631 mm). National Portrait Gallery, London, England.
Oil on canvas; 238.8 × 158.7 cm (94 × 62.5 in). Royal Collection Trust, Buckingham Palace, London, England.
Oil on canvas; 71 × 40 cm (28 × 15.7 in). Private collection ???
Admiral Lord George Brydges Rodney (1719—92)
Oil on canvas; 29 1/2 in. x 24 1/2 in. (749 mm x 622 mm). National Portrait Gallery, London, England.
Stipple and line engraving; paper size with decorative border: 11 1/8 in. x 7 5/8 in.
Oil on canvas; 142 x 119 cm. City of London Corporation, Guildhall Art Gallery, London, England.