UNDAUNTED: Titian Ramsay Peale (1799–1885)
When the six ships of the United States Exploring Expedition set sail in 1838, it was the young nation's most ambitious voyage of scientific exploration. Titian Ramsay Peale was on board as the zoologist in the Scientific Corps. This wasn't his first expedition. Peale (who was born in Philosophical Hall, the site of this exhibition) was the youngest son of Charles Willson Peale, the famous Revolutionary War painter and founder of America's first public museum.
Even as a very young man, Titian was known for his enthusiasm for natural history, his talent for collecting, and his skills as an artist. In his four years with the "Ex. Ex.," as it was known, they crisscrossed the globe from the southern Atlantic all the way to Antarctica, across the Pacific as far as Australia, and then explored the coast of the Pacific Northwest before sailing back to Asia, around southern Africa, and finally to New York. It was the last all-sail naval squadron to circumnavigate the world. They returned with precise navigational charts of the Pacific and vast collections of exotic specimens, ethnographic objects, and fossils that became the basis for the Smithsonian Institution's collection.
Images: (above, left) Maker unknown, after painting by Charles Willson Peale, T. R. Peale, n.d. APS; (above, right) Maker unknown, Model of the Peacock [sailed by T. R. Peale], 19th c. APS
