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The Artist in his Museum, by Charles Willson Peale, 1822.
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Charles Willson Peale's self portrait in his museum, as he draws back a curtain to show many artifacts. A mounted turkey and taxidermy instruments are in the foreground.

Credit: Courtesy of The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia. Gift of Mrs. Sarah Harrison (The Joseph Harrison Jr. Collection), 1878.1.2

A man of broad interests and talents, Philadelphian Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827) painted more than 300 portraits of prominent American men and women. In this famous 1822 self-portrait titled The Artist in his Museum, 1822, Peale placed himself in front of the main exhibit room to his natural history museum - the nation's first - then located on the second floor of Independence Hall.

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