The Staircase Group
| Support Type: | Canvas |
| Paint Type: | Oil Paint |
| Current Location: | Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, United States |
| Location History: | Peale painted The Staircase Group in 1795 specifically for the first and only exhibition of the Columbianum, or American Academy of Painting, Sculpture, Architecture and Engraving, which opened in Philadelphia on 22 May 1795. The exhibition was an important early attempt to establish a formal American art academy, and Peale used the painting to demonstrate the possibilities of painting and illusion. After the exhibition, Peale installed the painting in his Philadelphia Museum, the institution he had established to display art and natural-history objects. Its illusion was apparently convincing enough that visitors could mistake the painted figures for real people; a later account by Peale’s son Rembrandt recalled that George Washington even bowed politely to the figures before realising they were painted. The painting remained associated with the Peale Museum until the 1854 sale of its paintings, when it was acquired by Philadelphia collector Joseph Harrison. It later passed to his widow and then to Mrs. Sabin W. Colton Jr., a descendant of the Peale family. After her death in 1932, her son Professor Harold Sellers lent the painting to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The museum finally purchased it in 1945, and it became part of the George W. Elkins Collection, where it remains today. |
The Staircase Group is a double portrait of two of Charles Willson Peale's sons, Raphaelle Peale and Titian Ramsay Peale, completed in 1795. It almost appears to be a snapshot of a real room when you first look at it. The two young men appear to be standing on a staircase and coming towards the viewer. Raphaelle, the eldest of the two, stands on a step below on the staircase with a palette, paint brushes and other painting paraphernalia suggesting he is an artist. Titian leans around a doorway above him staring right at the viewer as if he has just walked in. But that is not even the most interesting thing about this painting: the staircase is entirely imaginary. Peale has thought of and painted a trompe-l'il, a kind of 'Deceive the eye' technique which fools the viewer into thinking the painted staircase is at the same level and extends into the real world. The steps painted onto the canvas come right up to a real wooden one attached to the bottom of the painting, the canvas has been wedged into an architectural frame or doorway so that you are almost part of the scene. The dark doorway, wooden staircase, decorated wall and well-placed shadows create a setting that looks like an everyday space rather than a deliberately composed work of art. And even the poses of the two boys add to this effect. They do not appear as if they are gazing into a camera in order to sit for a portrait. And there is something especially compelling about Raphaelle and the tools of his trade. Not only is it a portrait of his sons, but it is a gentle testament to the act of making art. Peale is showing his son in the act of painting, but is also clearly demonstrating his skill at making paint mimic the physical world. It is both a family portrait, and a sublime magic trick a portrait of a family, and illusion at the same time. It's quite a sense of immediacy for a work painted in 1795. It's as if the figures are about to walk out of the door it seems strangely alive.
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