Charles Willson Peale was a man of many, many interests and therefore was a solidly mediocre soldier, scientist, inventor, politician, naturalist, writer, saddler, watchmaker, carpenter, dentist, optometrist, silversmith, shoemaker, and taxidermist.

The only thing he wasn’t mediocre at was painting and baby making, as he had 17 children…(Yikes). And to prove his love of the arts, he named his children after great painters that came before him, such as Raphael, Rembrandt, Rubens, Angelica Kauffman, and Titian. He obviously didn’t consider the fact that his children would be brutally bullied for their names…especially poor little Sophonisba Angusciola.

Along with his obviously very loving relationship with his wives (he was married three times) he had a great love of painting and was famous for his portraits of icons like George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin etc. One of his many portrait of Washington sold at auction for $21.3 million dollars, the highest price ever paid for an American portrait. Bummer he sucked at finance though and didn’t have nearly that kind of money while he was alive. That would have really cushioned his more expensive hobbies…like the museum that he started but was forced to sell. It was the first one in America, too!

You’re probably thinking, “WTF did Peale not do?” Well, he didn’t really take care of his children, which is why he remarried within a year of his first wife’s death. He just didn’t know what to do with his copious amounts of offspring and was obviously too busy to figure it out...what with all that important saddling and shoemaking calling his name.