Charles Pettit, 1792¹
Oil on canvas
36 x 27 in. (91.4 x 68.6 cm.)
Museum purchase, 1919.121

Provenance
The sitter Charles Pettit (1736–1806); to his son Andrew Pettit (1762–1837); to his son Robert Pettit (1804–1878); to his son Robert Pettit (1846–after 1890); to his daughter Sara Pettit Hetherington (Mrs. Seth C. Hetherington) (b. 1877), by 1915. Purchased by the Worcester Art Museum from Frank W. Bayley, Copley Gallery, Boston.²

References
Trask and Laurvik 1915, II, 353.

"Acquisitions," Worcester Bulletin 10, no. 3 (October 1919): 51.

Worcester Bulletin 10, no. 4 (January 1920): 71.

"Accessions by Purchase, 1919–1920," Worcester Annual Report 1920, 25.

Worcester 1922, 98–99, 197.

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts 1923, 80.

Thorpe 1925, 24–25.

Lee 1929, 122.

Worcester 1929, n.p.

Worcester 1933, 96.

Bolton 1939, 382, 434.

James 1942, 57, opp. 64.

Sellers 1952, 170, 264, 270, 330.

Cincinnati 1954, 17.

Sellers 1954, 11.

Elam 1967, 59, 64–65.

Gerdts 1967, [260].

Worcester 1973, 149.

Reutlinger 1975, 20, 21.

Teitz 1979, 52–53.

Richardson 1983, 70, 248.

Worcester 1994, 185.

Exhibitions
Panama-Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco, 1915, cat. no. 2791.

Portraits by Charles Willson Peale and James Peale and Rembrandt Peale, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts 1923, Philadelphia, April 11–May 9, 1923, cat. no. 80.

Exhibition of American Eighteenth Century Art Owned in and near Worcester, Worcester Art Museum, March 10–31, 1929, cat. no. 334.

The Peale Family, Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, Ohio, October 1–31, 1954, cat. no. 32.

The Peale Family: Three Generations of American Artists, Detroit Institute of Arts, January 18–March 5, 1967; Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, New York, March 26–May 7, 1967, cat. no. 44.

The Colonial Epoch in America, Worcester Art Museum, April 18, 1975–January 4, 1976, cat. pp. 20, 21.

American Art from the Collection of the Worcester Art Museum, Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, April 27–June 24, 1979, cat. pp. 52–53.

Charles Willson Peale and His World, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C., November 4, 1982–January 2, 1983; Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, Fort Worth, Texas, February 11–April 3, 1983; Metropolitan Museum of Art, June 6–September 4, 1983, cat. no. 41.

Notes
1. This portrait also has been published as: Colonel Charles Pettit (Thorpe 1925, 25); Col. Charles Pettit (Elam 1967, 59); Col. Thomas Pettit (Worcester Bulletin 10, no. 3 [October 1919]), 51); Portrait of Charles Pettit (Gerdts 1967, [260]); Portrait of Colonel Charles Pettit (Worcester 1922, 98–99); Portrait of Col. Charles Pettit (Worcester 1929, n.p.).

2. "Portrait from Life of Col. Charles Pettit," August 29, 1917, ms.; Brooks Reed Gallery, Boston, to Raymond Wyer, Director of the Worcester Art Museum, June 4, 1918; receipt, Frank W. Bayley, Copley Gallery, Boston, April 14, 1919; genealogical notes prepared by Rebecca Rudden. All documents in object file, Worcester Art Museum.