I love the Peale! The Peale Museum was built in 1814 by Rembrandt Peale — the first building in the Western Hemisphere to be built specifically as a home of the muses, enlightenment, science, truth, and beauty, which it has been ever since. Even when the muses gave way to politicians and the Baltimore Museum became the Baltimore City Hall from 1830 to 1875, deliberations on every subject were ennobled by the beautiful setting. Under the visionary Rembrandt Peale “Peale’s Baltimore Museum and Gallery of Fine Arts” encouraged knowledge and interesting events of every useful kind, including a seated dinner inside the world’s first reconstructed Mastodon skeleton, and America’s first illumination with gas lights. Now again as “The Peale” the venerable Museum houses new art, spectacles, narratives and enlightening innovations of every kind. How fun! How inspiring! How unusual! How unexpected! How Baltimore!

– Mortimer Sellers, Baltimore flaneur