On View
On viewObject number2004.8
The Reverend Joseph Pilmore
Artist
Charles Willson Peale
(American, 1741-1827)
Dateca. 1787
Mediumoil on canvas
Dimensionsframe: 28 × 23 1/2 × 2 1/4 in. (71.1 × 59.7 × 5.7 cm)
image: 23 × 18 3/4 in. (58.4 × 47.6 cm)
image: 23 × 18 3/4 in. (58.4 × 47.6 cm)
Credit LineElisabeth Claire Lahti Fund
Exhibition History"American Masters, 18th and 19th centuries," Kennedy Galleries, New York (Mar. 14 - Apr. 7, 1973), ill. pl. 5.
"Highlight of the Permanent Collection," KIA (Dec. 2004 - Feb. 2005).
"A Legacy for Kalamazoo: Works Acquired through the Elisabeth Claire Lahti Fund, 1998 - 2012," KIA (Sept. 29, 2012 - Jan. 20, 2013).
"Unveiling American Genius," KIA Permanent Collection Exhibition, Traditional, Markin, Nay and Groos Galleries (March 1, 2021 - December 31, 2023).Label TextBorn in Yorkshire, England, Joseph Pilmore first moved to the United States in 1769 after volunteering to work as a Methodist missionary, working as a preacher in New York, Philadelphia, and while traveling in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Georgia. After the American Revolution he went back to England to become ordained as an Anglican minister before returning to Philadelphia to preach. In Philadelphia Pilmore gained a substantial reputation, and the expansive (for its time) St. Paul’s Episcopal Church was reportedly built to contain the large crowds who came to listen to his sermons.
Charles Willson Peale was among the leading American artists of the Early Republic era, and painted portraits of many of the period’s most prominent figures. Having studied with painters John Singleton Copley and Benjamin West in Boston and London, Peale settled in Philadelphia in 1776 and founded a museum there a decade later, around the time he painted Pilmore’s portrait. The Reverend Joseph Pilmore shows a self-possessed and confident man, and the sitter’s hand covering his heart may be an allusion to his religious oath as a man of God.
Amidst the challenging economic conditions of the postwar era Peale struggled at times to make ends meet, and resolved to try to sell mezzotint prints of his portraits to generate extra income. After making and selling prints of Benjamin Franklin, the Marquis de Lafayette, and George Washington, a print of Pilmore (one of which is also in the KIA’s collection) became the fourth and bestselling of these mezzotints after it was advertised in a Philadelphia newspaper. However, the limitations of the nascent United States’ emerging arts infrastructure meant that printing difficulties led the Pilmore picture to be the last such mezzotint Peale produced.
