The Peale | |
Location | 225 North Holliday Street, Baltimore, Maryland |
---|---|
Coordinates | 39°17′30.89″N76°36′38.28″W / 39.2919139°N 76.6106333°W |
Built | 1814 |
Architect | Robert Carey Long, Sr. |
Architectural style | Georgian |
Website | thepeale.org |
NRHP reference No. | 66000915 |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | October 15, 1966 [1] |
Designated NHL | December 21, 1965 [2] |
Designated BCL | 1971 |
The Peale is a community museum in Baltimore, Maryland, which opened in 2022 after a 5-year renovation. It occupies the first building in the Western Hemisphere to be designed and built specifically as a museum.
Rembrandt Peale's original museum was open from 1814 until 1829. The collection was moved to a new building as the Baltimore Museum and Gallery of Fine Arts. The original building later served as Baltimore's City Hall from 1830 to 1875 and from 1878 to 1887 as one of the first grammar schools and the first high school for African-American students in Baltimore.
The Building was renovated and rededicated in 1931 as the Municipal Museum of Baltimore. It was renovated again starting in 1978 and was reopened in 1981 as the Peale Museum. The Municipal Museum closed in 1997 and the entire collection was moved to the Maryland Historical Society.
In 1814, artist Rembrandt Peale established "Peale's Baltimore Museum and Gallery of Fine Arts" at 225 North Holliday Street between East Saratoga and East Lexington streets in Baltimore. Rembrandt was the second son of Charles Willson Peale, the artist and founder of Peale's Philadelphia Museum. The museum occupied the first building in the Western Hemisphere to be designed and built specifically as a museum. [3] It was designed by architect Robert Cary Long, Sr. [4] Rembrandt Peale's museum featured portraits of famous Americans, including some by its founder, as well as the complete skeleton of a prehistoric mastodon exhumed by Charles Willson Peale in 1801. [5] During the Battle of Baltimore a month after opening, Rembrandt Peale, his wife, and seven children spent the night in the museum hoping that the British military would think the museum was their home and spare the building. [6]
The fame of Peale's museum was such that it was occasionally described as simply the "Baltimore Museum." [7] Rembrandt's brother, Rubens Peale, managed the museum until 1829. [8]
Extensive reviews by John Neal of the museum's annual exhibitions in 1822 and 1823 are some of the earliest published works of American art criticism. [9]
The museum was the first building in Baltimore to have gas lighting. [10]
In 1829, the museum building was sold due to financial difficulties and the exhibits were moved to a newly constructed building on the northwest corner of North Calvert Street and East Baltimore Street, one block south of the Battle Monument Square and the Baltimore City Courthouse. This second building became the Baltimore Museum and Gallery of Fine Arts (also known as the Baltimore Museum Theatre) in 1834. [11]
From 1830 to 1875, the museum's former building served as the first Baltimore City Hall. [12]
The building was turned over to the city's Board of School Commissioners and the Baltimore City Public Schools. In 1878, it became the Male and Female Colored School No. 1. [12] The school, which operated until 1887, was one of the first grammar schools and the first high school for African American students in Baltimore. [13] The high school, which opened in 1883, was the predecessor of Frederick Douglass High School. [14]
The building housed the Bureau of Water Supply from 1887 to 1916 [5] and was rented by various shops and factories from 1916 to 1928.
By 1928, the building had been repeatedly condemned and was in danger of demolition. It was renovated and rededicated in 1931 as the Municipal Museum of Baltimore. [12] The renovation of the building was supervised by John Henry Scarff, a Baltimore-born architect, painter, and archaeologist, who later worked closely on policies governing looted art and damaged monuments during and after World War II. [15]
The building was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965. [5]
The building underwent a major two-year renovation starting in 1978 and was reopened in 1981 as the Peale Museum. In 1985, the Peale Museum became part of the Baltimore City Life Museums (BCLM), a consortium of historic homes, building and sites. [5] [16]
BCLM folded in 1997 and the entire Peale Museum collection was moved to the Maryland Historical Society, now called the Maryland Center for History and Culture, leaving the original building on North Holliday Street vacant until it was reopened for periodic public programs and events in 2017.
In 2014, a campaign was being waged by a Maryland group to raise $4 million for restoration of the museum. [17] The restoration project was completed in 2022 and "the Peale", "Baltimore’s Community Museum" opened in August 2022. [18]
Rembrandt Peale was an American artist and museum keeper. A prolific portrait painter, he was especially acclaimed for his likenesses of presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Peale's style was influenced by French neoclassicism after a stay in Paris in his early thirties.
The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) is a private art and design college in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1826 as the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts, it is regarded as one of the oldest art colleges in the United States.
Mount Vernon is a neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland, located immediately north of the city's downtown. It is named for George Washington's Mount Vernon estate in Virginia, as the site of the city's Washington Monument.
The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) in Baltimore, Maryland, is an art museum that was founded in 1914. The BMA's collection of 95,000 objects encompasses more than 1,000 works by Henri Matisse anchored by the Cone Collection of modern art, as well as one of the nation's finest holdings of prints, drawings, and photographs. The galleries currently showcase collections of art from Africa; works by established and emerging contemporary artists; European and American paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts; ancient Antioch mosaics; art from Asia, and textiles from around the world.
The Washington Monument is the centerpiece of intersecting Mount Vernon Place and Washington Place, an urban square in the Mount Vernon-Belvedere neighborhood north of downtown Baltimore, Maryland. It was the first major monument to honor George Washington (1732–1799).
The Phoenix Shot Tower, also known as the Old Baltimore Shot Tower, is a red brick shot tower, 234.25 feet (71.40 m) tall, located near the downtown, Jonestown, and Little Italy communities of East Baltimore, in Maryland. When it was completed in 1828 it was the tallest structure in the United States.
The President Street Station in Baltimore, Maryland, is a former train station and railroad terminal. Built in 1849 and opened in February 1850, the station saw some of the earliest bloodshed of the American Civil War (1861-1865), and was an important rail link during the conflict. It is the oldest surviving big-city railroad terminal in the United States.
Clifton Park is a public urban park and national historic district located between the Coldstream-Homestead-Montebello and Waverly neighborhoods to the west and the Belair-Edison, Lauraville, Hamilton communities to the north in the northeast section of Baltimore, Maryland, United States. It is roughly bordered by Erdman Avenue to the northeast, Sinclair Lane to the south, Harford Road to the northwest and Belair Road to the southeast. The eighteen-hole Clifton Park Golf Course, which is the site of the annual Clifton Park Golf Tournament, occupies the north side of the park.
The Carroll Mansion is a historic building and museum located in Baltimore, Maryland.
Baltimore City Hall is the official seat of government of the City of Baltimore, in the State of Maryland. The City Hall houses the offices of the Mayor and those of the City Council of Baltimore. The building also hosts the city Comptroller, some various city departments, agencies and boards/commissions along with the historic chambers of the Baltimore City Council. Situated on a city block bounded by East Lexington Street on the north, Guilford Avenue on the west, East Fayette Street on the south and North Holliday Street with City Hall Plaza and the War Memorial Plaza to the east, the six-story structure was designed by the then 22-year-old new architect, George Aloysius Frederick (1842–1924) in the Second Empire style, a Baroque revival, with prominent Mansard roofs with richly-framed dormers, and two floors of a repeating Serlian window motif over an urbanely rusticated basement.
The First Unitarian Church is a historic church and congregation at 12 West Franklin Street in Mount Vernon, Baltimore, Maryland. Dedicated in 1818, it was the first building erected for Unitarians in the United States. The church is a domed cube with a stucco exterior. The church, originally called the "First Independent Church of Baltimore", is the oldest building continuously used by a Unitarian congregation. The name was changed in 1935 to "The First Unitarian Church of Baltimore " following the merger with the former Second Universalist Church at East Lanvale Street and Guilford Avenue in midtown Baltimore. The American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of America (established 1866) representing the two strains of Unitarian Universalism beliefs and philosophies merged as a national denomination named the Unitarian Universalist Association in May 1961.
Seton Hill Historic District is a historic district in Baltimore, Maryland. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.
Edmund George Lind was an English-born American architect, active in Baltimore, Atlanta, and the American south.
Eastern High School, established in 1844 along with its sister school Western High School, was a historic all-female, public high school located in Baltimore City, Maryland, 21218, U.S.A. Its final building, at 1101 East 33rd Street, is to the west of The Baltimore City College, also at 33rd Street, and across the street from the former site of Memorial Stadium. E.H.S. was operated by the Baltimore City Public Schools system at successive locations until it was closed in 1986. The final building was renovated in the 1990s and is currently owned and used for offices by the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000.
The Baltimore City Heritage Walk is a heritage trail that links 20 historic sites and museums in downtown Baltimore, Maryland.
War Memorial Plaza is a public square, small park and space in Downtown Baltimore between City Hall and the War Memorial Building, between Holliday Street on the west, East Fayette Street on the south, North Gay Street on the east, and East Lexington Street on the north.
Baltimore Heritage is an American nonprofit historic-preservation organization headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
The Baltimore Museum and Gallery of Fine Arts, sometimes referred to as the Baltimore Museum Theatre or simply the Baltimore Museum, was a theatre and dime museum in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, located at the corners of Baltimore and Calvert streets. It was originally the second location of Rubens Peale's Baltimore Museum which occupied the second floor of the building beginning in January 1830. In 1834, it was renamed the Baltimore Museum and Gallery of Fine Arts after the enterprise was taken over by Edmund Peale, the nephew of Rubens. Edmund operated the business until it was purchased by P. T. Barnum in 1845. In 1847, the building underwent a major reconstruction to turn it into a proper theatre venue. After this, it was often referred to as the Baltimore Museum Theatre. In 1861, the theatre came under the management of George Kunkel who re-named the venue Kunkel's Ethiopian Opera House. After Kunkel left in 1864, the venue was used more as a bar and place for public dances rather than a theatre. It was destroyed by fire on December 12, 1873.
It opened in August 1814. The following month, the British attacked Baltimore in the culmination of their Chesapeake campaign during the War of 1812. Afraid they would burn the city and with it his new museum, as they had the Capitol and the White House in Washington, D. C., Rembrandt, his pregnant wife and their seven children spent the night in the building during the Fort McHenry bombardment, hoping that the British would think it was their residence and spare it.
For six weeks in June and July 1824, Padihershef resided in Baltimore, primarily at the Baltimore Museum on Holliday Street, where he raked in an astonishing $1,842.