Peale Family Paintings from the Estate of J. Ashley and Pamela Patterson Roach

JEFFERSON, THOMAS

Autograph letter signed to Charles Willson Peale. Washington: 10 March 1809. One-page autograph letter in ink signed “Th. Jefferson” and addressed to “Mr. Peale” at lower left, the letter thanking Peale for the portrait of his grandson [Thomas Randolph Jefferson, completed in late 1808] and inviting him to visit Monticello. Without an integral blank or docketing on the verso. The sheet 9 3/4 x 8 3/8 inches (27 x 22 cm); matted and framed. Usual folds, mat toning to extremities with some splits, including one touching the first word of the salutation, and a small loss to the margin where opened, the ink dark and the signature bold.

Provenance: Charles Willson Peale; By inheritance to son Rubens Peale (1784-1865); To daughter Mary Jane Peale (1827-1902) or to son Dr. James Burd Peale (1833-1881); to sister-in-law Rebecca Wilmer Peale (1838-1921) (Mary Rebecca Frisby Wilmer Peale, wife of James Burd Peale, MD); To daughters Caroline Elise and Elisabeth "Elsie" Burd Peale (1875-1931); To sister Caroline Elise Peale (1872-1943); To sister Rebecca Burd Peale Patterson (1881-1952); To granddaughter Pamela Shippen Patterson (Roach) (1943-2013); To Trust of Pamela Patterson Roach, 2013; To Trust of Joseph Ashley Roach, 2024-present

The text in reads in full:

Being just on the eve of my departure for Monticello I must write you a short letter returning you a thousand thanks for the portrait of my grandson, which is indeed inimitably done. I do not know whether age impairs the faculties of your art, but I am sure it would do honor to any period of life. it will be a treasure to his parents & not less so to me. as he wished to see them & had a month to spare, he sat out two or three days ago for Monticello; and will be with you again before the commencement of the botanical lectures. I now inclose you an order of the Bank of the US. here on that at Philadelphia for an hundred & fifty dollars, which I imagine will carry him through that course of lecture, when he will return home. I believe you never ramble for the purposes of looking out subjects for your Museum. Were a ramble to lead you to Monticello, we should all receive you with open arms & hearts. God bless you & give you many & happy years.

Th: Jefferson

"Were a ramble to lead you to Monticello, we should all receive you with open arms & hearts" - a fine and important letter from Thomas Jefferson to his longtime correspondent and great friend Charles Willson Peale. Here, Jefferson, the inventor and statesmen just five days into his post-presidency, writes Peale, the great artist, founder of the Philadelphia Museum, and holder of the patent for Jefferson's prized polygraph machine, about his pleasure at Peale's portrait of his grandson. Jefferson also is pleased with Peale's role in the young man's education and closes by offering a warm invitation to Monticello. While they certainly may have met earlier, the relationship between contemporaries Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) and Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827) took form following Jefferson's sittings for his 1791 portrait, and Founders Online records 218 letters between them. At the writing of this letter in 1809, Jefferson is pleased with Peale's portrait of his grandson, Thomas Randolph Jefferson, which was retained by his daughter Martha following his death and remains to this day in the collection of Monticello. The painting had been a gift from Peale who had written to Jefferson in the letter preceding this one that "I now send you a Picture by this Stage as a small pledge of my esteem, it will I hope be long in your view, when you will remember that it was painted by your friend at the age 68, then reviving a fondness for an art which was long neglected by attachments to the charming Study of Natural history." Jefferson assures him that upon receipt, the portrait is a treasure and that his skills seem to transcend his age.

Jefferson also comments on the education of his then 16-year-old grandson, who had been sent to Philadelphia to attend Benjamin Smith Barton’s botanical lectures at the University of Pennsylvania and was under the care of Charles Willson Peale until he returned home. The letter is also written shortly after Peale's acquisition of a Mastodon skeleton, which he displayed at his Philadelphia Museum, and, as he mentioned in his letter to Jefferson, he had turned his attention from art to natural history, a subject of great interest to Jefferson, which consumed much of their correspondence in this period. While they wrote each other frequently, their letters are scarce at auction, with Rare Book Hub reporting very few from Jefferson to Peale and none from Peale to Jefferson. A very fine association letter between two of the United States' most inventive minds, whose lives and careers greatly shaped the American character and imagination.

Jefferson's retained polygraph copy of the letter in the Library of Congress archives is located here:

https://www.loc.gov/resource/mtj1.043_0964_0965/?sp=2&st=image

The published text of this letter in the National Archives Founders Online is located here:

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-01-02-0030

A portion of the letter is also quoted on the Monticello website:

https://www.monticello.org/research-education/thomas-jefferson-encyclopedia/thomas-jefferson-randolph-painting/