The Peale Family pair of Federal cast brass and wrought-iron andirons, attributed to Daniel King, Sr. or Jr., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, circa 1790

Possibly Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827) of Philadelphia;
to his son, Rubens Peale (1784-1865);
to his daughter, Mary Jane Peale (1827-1902);
to her brother, James Burd Peale, of Holmesburg, Pennsylvania;
thence by descent in the family;
Christie’s, Important American Furniture, Silver, Folk Art and Decorative Arts, June 16, 1999, lot 171
Sotheby's, Important Americana, January 21-22, 2005, lot 1197

Fine condition.
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This pair of andirons is attributed to the prominent Philadelphia brass founders Daniel King Sr. (1731-1806) and Daniel King Jr. (1757-1836) on the basis of a closely related pair of andirons at Winterthur Museum signed Daniel King fecit (see Donald Fennimore, Metalwork in Early American: Copper and Its Alloys from the Winterthur Collection, 1996, no. 54, p. 134). Both pairs display strikingly similar fluted columnar shafts, bases, capitals, and rectangular plinths. This pair differs in the urn finials and triple shod feet, rather than the urn-and-cap finials and ball-and-claw feet of the Winterthur pair, and may represent a later design. Another related pair of andirons attributed to King is in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and illustrated in David Warren, American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection, 1998, M263, p. 364.  

A master of his trade, Daniel King Sr. manufactured high-quality andirons and other wares from 1760 to the late 1700s at a foundry on South Front Street, to which he supplied Philadelphia’s elite, including William Wharton in 1764 and General John Cadwalader in 1770. He led the brass founders in the Grand Federal Procession of 1788, after which he promptly retired to Germantown, leaving the running of the foundry to his son, Daniel King Jr. (Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia: Three Centuries of American Art, 1976, p. 102). 

This pair was originally owned by Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827) or his son Rubens Peale (1784-1865) and descended directly in their family until 1999. An early American portrait artist who studied with Benjamin West, Charles Willson Peale fought in the Revolution as a Whig and later served as a Representative at the Pennsylvania Assembly in 1779.  Also a naturalist, museologist and inventor, Peale went on to establish the Philadelphia Museum of Natural History and Art after retiring as a portrait artist. His son, Rubens, ran the Peale Museum in Philadelphia and established art and science museums in Baltimore and New York. He turned to farming after acquiring a 1741 farmhouse near Schuylkill Haven, Pennsylvania in 1842 and began painting in 1755. He lived at the farm with his wife, Eliza Burd Patterson, and kept a diary of his daily activities, Journal of Woodland Farm, which reflects the close relationship he shared with his only daughter Mary Jane Peale (1827-1902). Also an accomplished artist, Mary trained at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and often spent time at the farm painting with her father (Schweizer, “Fruite of Perseverance: The Art of Rubens Peale, 1855-1865,” The Peale Family: Creation of a Legacy, 1770-1870, 1996, pp. 169-171). After her father’s death in 1865, Mary inherited the farmhouse and its contents. At her death, the andirons were left to her brother James Burd Peale and descended through the female lines of the family until 1999. 

A photograph of the andirons taken during Mary Jane Peale’s ownership of the farmhouse is extant in the collection of the American Philosophical Society (see fig. 1).