Image
Timothy Matlack, by Charles Willson Peale, about 1790.
Credit: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Gift in memory of Martha Legg McPheeters, M. Theresa B. Hopkins Fund, Emily L. Ainsley Fund, Juliana Cheney Edwards Collection, and A. Shuman Collection, 1998.218
When Charles Willson Peale painted his portrait in 1790, Timothy Matlack had recently been appointed Chief Clerk of the new Pennsylvania Senate. A founder of the Free Quakers, who broke with the Society of Friends to support the War for Independence, Matlack, exuding confidence, had Peale paint him in a fashionable and colorful suit of clothing, complete with scarf in hand, that was very much at odds with Quaker simplicity.