Strawberries and Cream A26429. Painting, National Gallery of Art

Raphaelle Peale (1774-1825) was an American classicist painter. While his father, Charles Willson Peale, considered still life a subject for amateurs, Raphaelle Peale is considered the founder of professional American still life painting. Illness, poverty, alcoholism, a troubled marriage, and irrational behavior took a toll on his caring father and his more successful younger brother, Rembrandt. Raphaelle Peale, however, enjoyed creating visual puns through trompe l'oeil painting. His fruit still lifes, on the other hand, are more meditative paintings, less concerned with tricking the eye than with paying full attention to the beauty of nature's bounty, including its imperfections.