This past week one of the gems of our collection and one of the most important paintings in American Art, “Exhumation of the Mastodon” by Charles Willson Peale (1741-1847), traveled across the ocean to landesmuseumdarmstadt in Germany where it will be on loan for a new exhibition featuring the original skeleton depicted in the painting. The mastodon fossil at landesmuseumdarmstadt is the same one that Charles Willson Peale excavated in New York and then assembled in his Philadelphia museum where it went on display in 1801. After Peale’s museum closed in 1847, the skeleton went to Europe and found a buyer who took it to Darmstadt, Germany where it has been ever since. We are pleased to temporarily reunite Peale's painting of the skeleton's discovery with the skeleton itself for this exhibition. Image of painting: “Exhumation of the Mastodon” by Charles Willson Peale (1741-1847), oil on canvas, c.1807. Maryland Center for History and Culture, Baltimore City Life Museum Collection, Gi...