Yarrow Mamout #1007

Caption from poster__         Yarrow Mamout 1736 - 1827 All that is known of Yarrow Mamout, an enslaved African who died a free man at a very old age, comes from the diary of the man who painted his striking portrait. Charles William Peale was an American portrait painter who established a museum in Philadelphia. Dedicated to American history and natural history, the museum's exhibits ranged from presidential portraits to the bones of a mastodon that Peale had un- earthed. In 1819, Peale (whose son Raphaelle had painted Absalom Jones in 1810) went to Washington to record the likenesses of distinguished Americans; while there he heard about an old African man, Yarrow Mamout, who lived in Georgetown. Peale was most likely intrigued by Mamout's great age, reputedly 134 years at the time, and the fact that he was a practicing Muslim supposedly a rarity in 19th century America, though that question is still open to scholar- ly debate. Peale wrote in his diary, "I spent the whole day and not