'Art conceal'd': Peale's double portrait of Benjamin and Eleanor Ridgely Laming

Another noteworthy element is the natural, open-air setting in which the subjects are placed. Although fashionable in contemporary British portraiture, such a setting was extremely rare in Peale's work.(19) While his portraits often incorporate a landscape, this is usually treated as a background element, framed by an open door or window, as in the Elie Valette Family (1774; Philip Elie Coleman).(20) When larger background views are used, the subjects normally sit on indoor furniture or are framed by some other suggestion of an interior, such as a swag of drapery.(21) The portrait of Mr. and Mrs. James Gittings and their granddaughter [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 3 OMITTED!, for example, incorporates an extensive view of the sitters' estate, but the Gittingses themselves are clearly seated in an interior framed by a column and drape, with furniture and books nearby. There is no such suggestion in the Laming portrait. The subjects are seated on the grass, which is visible between them.

Also puzzling is the parrot, prominently displayed and completely incongruous in a Maryland landscape. Although birds are often found in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century portraits, especially those of women or children, Peale only occasionally included them. Moreover, those he depicted were almost always native North American birds - blue jays, cardinals, mockingbirds. The other natural elements that he depicted more frequently - fruits and flowers - were also local and were carefully rendered, probably from life. The flowers and fruit in the Lamings' portrait can be clearly identified as plants that grew in Maryland. The red clover in Eleanor Laming's right hand is Trifolium pratense, and the flowers she wears in her dress are garden balsam, or Impatiens balsamina.(22) In her lap she holds peaches, which were cultivated enthusiastically on Maryland estates; as early as the seventeenth century, according to one account, Marylanders grew "Peaches in abundance and as good as those of Italy."(23) Thus, as is common in Peale's work, the natural elements of the Laming painting other than the parrot - the landscape, fruit, and flowers - particularize the sitters and their setting. The exotic bird becomes even more puzzling on closer examination. It is recognizable as a member of the Amazona genus, a parrot native to Central and South America. Unlike the careful renderings of the fruit and flowers, however, its depiction shows several inaccuracies: the proportions are incorrect, the head too small and the neck too long; the number and arrangement of toes are wrong; and no Amazon parrot has the red rump that Peale has painted. Also, the colors of the beak and the plumage represent characteristics taken from several different species.(24) Peale could not have been painting a parrot from life or from a preserved specimen. Since he was collecting specimens at the time for his museum, he would have had numerous other birds on hand, native to Maryland, which he could have rendered with more ease and accuracy. During the six weeks that he was painting the portrait, for example, he dressed two woodpeckers, a canary, a blue bird, and two ducks.(25) He clearly felt that it was important specifically to include a parrot, even though he had no model at hand.