Rubens Peale with a Geranium

Rembrandt Peale

National Gallery of Art

A young man shown from the waist up behind a tabletop takes up the left half of this vertical portrait, and a geranium in a terracotta pot takes up the right half of the painting. The man has pale, peachy skin and dark brown hair. He wears a pair of glasses with small oval lenses, a white neckcloth, and a brown coat. He looks down and to our left. He holds a second pair of silver-rimmed glasses in his right hand on the table, and his left hand, on our right, rests on the edge of the terracotta pot. The tall, leggy geranium nearly reaches the upper edge of the canvas and has two clusters of small red flowers near its top. The young man and plant are shown against a fawn-brown background. The artist signed and dated the painting in white letters in the lower right corner: “Rem Peale 1801.”