  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.
  
  
  Title
  Belfield Farm
  
  
  Artwork Date
  ca. 1816
  
  Artist
  Charles Willson Peale
  
  
  
  Life Dates
  1741-1827
  
  
  
  
  Nationality
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events.
  Some definitions include:
  Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation.
  
  
  
  American
  
  
  
  Culture
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group.
  
  
  
  
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  Medium
  Oil on canvas
  
  
  Dimensions
  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)
  
  
  Classification
  Paintings
  
  
  Department
  American Art before 1950
  
  
  Credit
  Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Irving Levitt
  
  
  
  Accession Number
  
  
  
  This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection.
  Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings.
  For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups.
  
  
  
  63.238
  
  
  Copyright
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