Yarrow Mamout and the Charles Willson Peale Portrait of 1819.

Charles Willson Peale's powerfully realized portrait of a formerly enslaved African Muslim, traditionally identified as I Yarrow Mamout i (c.1736-1823), is an exceptionally rare representation of ethnic and religious diversity in America prior to 1825. (Figure 1) This essay details how Peale came to know Yarrow, his observations of him and the context for his decision to paint Yarrow's portrait for his museum's portrait gallery. But it was Charles's understanding of Yarrow, gained from his encounters in Georgetown and his direct contact with Yarrow, that would merge with his own attitudes and understanding of ethnicity, age, slavery and Islam to shape his impression of Yarrow and the image of him he left for posterity. Peale's portrait of Yarrow is, by contrast, a deep dive into the sitter's physical likeness and Charles approached Yarrow with the same scrutiny he applied to himself in rendering his 1822 I Self Portrait in the Museum i . [Extracted from the article]