About the Artwork
In 1810, when he was sixty-eight years old, the painter and museum founder Charles Willson Peale purchased a large farm about ten miles from downtown Philadelphia, which he called Belfield (meaning “beautiful field”). The narrow trees with yellowed leaves are Lombardy poplars (Populus nigra ‘Italica’). The Romans called these trees populus, meaning “people,” because the sound of wind blowing through the leaves reminded them of the noise made by crowds.
Lombardy poplars are not native to North America. Peale’s trees probably came from his neighbor William Hamilton (1749 – 1813), who was the first American to import, cultivate, and sell large numbers of them. For Peale and his contemporaries, Lombardy poplars symbolized liberty, one reason they soon became the most commonly planted ornamental tree in the United States.
Belfield Farm
ca. 1816
Charles Willson Peale
1741-1827
American
Unknown
Oil on canvas
Unframed: 10 3/4 × 15 5/8 inches (27.3 × 39.7 cm) Framed: 14 5/8 × 19 1/2 × 2 1/4 inches (37.1 × 49.5 × 5.7 cm)
Paintings
American Art before 1950
Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Irving Levitt
63.238
Public Domain
Markings
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Provenance
possibly the artist's grandson.Augustus Runyon Peale.
Ralph L. Parkinson.
Dr. and Mrs. Irving Levitt (Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, USA);
1963-present, gift to the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)
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Provenance pageExhibition History
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The exhibition history of a number of objects in our collection only begins after their acquisition by the museum, and may reflect an incomplete record.
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Suggest FeedbackPublished References
The Institute Collects: A Selective Survey of Additions to the Collections, 1959-1964. Exh. cat., Detroit Institute of Arts. Detroit, 1964 (pl. 14).
Woods, Willis F., ed. Paintings in the Detroit Institute of Arts: A Checklist of the Paintings Acquired Before June 1965. Detroit, 1965, p. 85.
Sellers, Charles Coleman. Charles Willson Peale: A Biography. New York, 1969, pp. 41-42, no. S 109 (ill.).
The Peale Family: Three Generations of American Artists. Exh. cat., Detroit Institute of Arts. Detroit, 1976, pp. 20, 72, no. 66.
Nygren, Edward, et al. View and Visions: American Landscape Before 1830. Exh. cat., Wadsworth Atheneum. Hartford, CT, 1986, pp. 278-280.
Shaw, Nancy Rivard, et al. American Paintings in the Detroit Institute of Arts, Volume I. New York, 1991, pp. 149, 151-152, no. 66 (ill.).
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Credit Line for Reproduction
Charles Willson Peale, Belfield Farm, ca. 1816, oil on canvas. Detroit Institute of Arts, Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Irving Levitt, 63.238.
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