Image
John Beale Bordley, by Charles Willson Peale, 1770.
Credit: Courtesy the Collection of the National Gallery of Art. Gift of The Barra Foundation, Inc. 1984.2.1 Caption for art description from the National Gallery of Art
The year before Charles Willson Peale painted his portrait in 1770, Bordley had written a pamphlet advising American farmers to grow staple crops, like wheat, that would aid American independence rather than the cash and luxury crops "tobacco, wine, silks" that "kept them in debt and dependent" to "British storekeepers." To make the portrait a clear statement of the American agrarian Republican ideal, Peale packed it with symbolism. Unlocated for close to two centuries, Bordley's portrait turned up at a museum exhibit in Florida in the 1960s.