Peale Museum
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Peale's Baltimore Museum
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Peale Museum
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| Location | 225 North Holliday Street, Baltimore, Maryland |
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| Coordinates | 39°17′30.89″N 76°36′38.28″W / 39.2919139°N 76.6106333°WCoordinates: 39°17′30.89″N 76°36′38.28″W / 39.2919139°N 76.6106333°W |
| Built | 1814 |
| Architect | Robert Carey Long, Sr. |
| Architectural style | Georgian |
| NRHP Reference # | 66000915 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | October 15, 1966 |
| Designated NHL | December 21, 1965 |
The Peale Museum, also known officially as the Municipal Museum of the City of Baltimore, was a museum of paintings and natural history, located in the City of Baltimore, Maryland, United States. It occupied the first building in the Western Hemisphere to be designed and built specifically as a museum. The Peale Museum was created by Charles Willson Peale, (1741-1827) and his son Rembrandt Peale, 1778-1860). After functioning separately as the Baltimore City's historical museum since the original structure was being rebuilt, restored, and renovated in 1930-1931, and then later merging in with other historic sites, houses and museums in the early 1980s under the expansive efforts of new executive director, with the name of the Baltimore City Life Museums and a new broader mission in conjunction with the other historical locations.
After opening a new three-story exhibition gallery, uniquely using the old cast-iron façade of the razed (but placed in storage in a city yard for 30 years) of the old Fava Fruit Company and being re-assembled on the new structure facing North Front Street and the parallel new President Street Boulevard (between East Lombard and East Fayette Streets), the new gallery and the B.C.L.M. ran into financial difficulties in the first year in 1996-1997 after the grand opening, coincidentally during the Baltimore Bicentennial Celebration (of the City's 200th year after incorporation as a city), The Peale branch of the City Life Museums closed unfortunately with the other branches - historic houses and sites later in 1997 and its large collections from over 66 years of original existence were transferred and handed over to the Maryland Historical Society, founded 1844 on West Monument Street and Park Avenue. The building was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965.
Charles Willson Peale, (1741-1827), received his inspiration for a public museum in 1783 while illustrating mastodon fossils belonging to Dr. John Morgan. Once he had conceived the idea for an American museum of natural history, Charles Peale opened a museum to the public in Philadelphia on July 18, 1786. In 1810, Peale retired from his work with the museum, leaving its management and responsibility to his sons. Later in 1814, a museum was established at 225 North Holliday Street between East Saratoga and East Lexington Streets in Baltimore by Rembrandt Peale, (1778-1860), - the second son of Charles Willson Peale. It was then dubbed as "Peale's Baltimore Museum and Gallery of Fine Arts" and had the early exhibits including portraits of famous Americans (many by the founder) and the complete skeleton of a prehistoric mastodon exhumed by C.W. Peale in 1801.
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