Harriet Cany Peale
(1800-1869)

Info

Death place: Phila., PA
Addresses: Phila., PA
Favorite Genre: Portrait & Still Life
Exhibited: Artists' Fund Soc., 1840; PAFA, 1840 (as Miss Harriet Cany), 1848-65 (as Mrs. Rembrandt Peale) 

Biography

Harriet Cany was born in Philadelphia, PA in the early 19th Century. A pupil of Rembrandt Peale, she became his second wife, marrying him in the late 1830s. The couple established a studio in Philadelphia. She exhibited numerous landscapes, still lifes, portraits and genre works at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Harriet Cany Peale painted portraits, figurative works, and still lifes. She also made copies after her husband's work.

Sources: G&W; 7 Census (1850), Pa., LI, 686 [age 50]; 8 Census (1860), Pa., LV, 793 [age 61]; Rutledge, PA; Sellers, Charles Willson Peale, I, 419; Born, Female Peales: Their Art and Its Tradition"; American Collector (Dec. 1941), 3, repro; Petteys, Dictionary of Women Artists; Miller, ed. The Peale Family, 37. See Charles Willson Peale entry for archival information.