A painting emerges from obscurity

A cracked, untitled painting showing a ship engulfed in flames was rediscovered three years ago in a Maryland family home. Historians believe it's a lost work by James Peale, a major early American artist.

Britain taxes the colonies

Starting in the seventeen sixties, the British government levied taxes on its colonies to recoup costs from the French and Indian War. This sparked the cry of no taxation without representation.

Tea tax ignites rebellion

When tea was taxed in seventeen seventy-three, some colonies rebelled, leading to the Boston Tea Party. The Continental Congress adopted a trade boycott in September seventeen seventy-four.

Annapolis patriots demand action

When the Peggy Stewart sailed into Annapolis harbor carrying taxed tea, patriots erected a gallows outside owner Anthony Stewart's home. The loyalist merchant agreed to burn his ship on October nineteen to protect his family.

James Peale was there

James Peale was twenty-five years old and working as a studio assistant to his famous brother Charles Willson Peale when the Peggy Stewart burned in seventeen seventy-five. He lived through the Revolution, not just painted it.

“A picture like this is interesting because it has historic value in that it documents an event.”

The Peale brothers fought

James fought with the Maryland four hundred at the Battle of Brooklyn. Charles fought at Trenton and Princeton with the Pennsylvania militia. Both later settled in Philadelphia and founded a four-generation dynasty of American artists.

The painting vanishes for decades

The work first appears in a catalog of the Peales' Philadelphia Museum in eighteen thirteen. It may have been painted to build support for the War of eighteen twelve, then disappeared from records.

Lost in an auction

After James Peale died in eighteen thirty-one, the painting likely ended up among unidentified artworks sold when the Peale museum in Philadelphia went bankrupt in eighteen fifty-four. The current owner's ancestor probably purchased it then.

The painting moves to New England

The owner's great-grandfather lived in Baltimore in the mid-eighteen hundreds and would have known the Peggy Stewart story. He passed the painting to his son, who moved to New England where the story wasn't well-known.

A daughter seeks answers

The current owner inherited the painting but never asked her father about it before he died. As the two hundred fiftieth Declaration anniversary approached, she started researching and contacted art historians.

Clues confirm James Peale

A portrait of Charles Willson Peale wearing the same hat as in another painting appears among the onlookers. William Paca, a Declaration signer, is painted in the exact costume Charles used in a famous portrait still in Maryland.

The painting's future remains open

The owner loaned the work to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania for its summer exhibit. She could keep it, lend it to other museums, or put it up for auction. Its fate is still undecided.

“This is what happens to pictures sometimes. They descend in families and people don't pay much attention to them.”