Early years Peale opened the Philadelphia Museum in his home at Third and Lombard Streets in 1784. The first exhibition was a collection of forty-four portraits of "worthy personages" from the
American Revolutionary War. Two years later, in 1786, he advertised his museum as a repository for natural curiosities. In addition to portraits, the museum's collection eventually included natural history specimens, fossils, archaeological finds, native American and Asian objects and curiosities. Peale preserved his animal specimens using the methods of
Edme-Louis Daubenton; however, the results were not satisfactory. He therefore tried other methods and found that arsenic or
mercuric chloride were more effective. but eventually the first nearly complete skeleton of the species was recovered. As the skeleton was incomplete, Peale's son Rembrandt carved wooden replicas with the help of the sculptor
William Rush and
Moses Williams, a formerly enslaved person. The skeleton was unveiled in December as a separate exhibit costing 50¢, in addition to 25¢ to visit the museum.
Independence Hall In 1802 the museum moved again to
Independence Hall, the former Pennsylvania statehouse. Peale retired in 1810 and left the running of the museum to his son
Rubens. The museum was incorporated as the Philadelphia Museum Company in 1821. In 1822 Peale painted
The Artist in His Museum, a self-portrait with his museum in the Long Room of the Independence Hall in the background.
Other museums In 1814 Peale's son
Rembrandt opened a second
Peale Museum in Baltimore, which was the first purpose-built museum building in the United States. In the 1840s the Peale museums suffered from declining revenue and competition from the showman
P. T. Barnum, who opened his
American Museum in New York in 1842. The New York Peale museum was closed in 1842 and the Baltimore museum in 1845, their contents being sold to Barnum. In 1838 the museum moved to a newly constructed building at Ninth and Sansom streets, which was also known as the Chinese Museum as it initially housed the Chinese collection of
Nathan Dunn, one of its directors, in its lower story. That building burned down in 1854. Due to financial problems, the museum sold its 1838 building in 1843 and had to pay a high rent for the building until it moved out. Charles Willson's grandson, Edmund Peale, bought the collection at auction in 1845 and moved it into an ex-Masonic hall in Chestnut Street. The majority of the Philadelphia collection was sold to P. T. Barnum and
Moses Kimball in 1849 and was subsequently lost or destroyed. The portrait collection was auctioned in 1854 and some of it was bought by the City of Philadelphia for display in Independence Hall. == Gallery ==