George Washington

Born to Elizabeth Digby Peale and Robert Polk, Charles Peale Polk was the nephew of esteemed artists Charles Willson Peale and James Peale and a member of one of the most artistically acclaimed families of the eighteenth century. Orphaned at a young age, Polk was taken in by Charles Willson Peale. "In such an environment, it was unlikely that Polk could have had any ambition other than to become a painter. Charles was, indeed, one of his uncle's first pupils and learned from Peale the rudiments of technique and style as well as the accepted conventions of portrait painting." (L.C. Simmons in L.B. Miller, ed., The Peale Family: Creation of a Legacy, 1770-1870, New York, 1996, p. 250)