"Art conceal'd": Peale's Double Portrait of Benjamin and Eleanor Ridgely Laming

Abstract

This article examines a double portrait by Charles Willson Peale, Benjamin and Eleanor Ridgely Laming (1788; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.). Study of the sitters' poses, clothing, expressions, and setting and comparison with other works by Peale suggest that the couple is depicted as Rinaldo and Armida, lovers from the sixteenth-century poem Gerusalemme Liberata by Tasso. Peale's use of this theme appears based both on visual sources and on the poem itself. Recognition of his ties to the English tradition of poetic portraiture confirms the view that Peale cannot be regarded as a purely descriptive painter.