Established | 1784 |
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Dissolved | 1849 |
Location | Independence Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1802-1827) |
Key holdings | Peale's mastodon |
Founder | Charles Willson Peale |
The Philadelphia Museum was an early museum in Philadelphia started by the painter Charles Willson Peale and continued by his family. It was opened in 1784 as an art museum and added a natural history collection in 1786. The exhibits included the first nearly complete skeleton of the mastodon, a relative of the mammoth. Peale died in 1827 and the collection was sold in 1849 and 1854.