The patriarch of a prominent artistic family, Charles Willson Peale established one of the first museums in America and raised seventeen children, many of whom grew up to become artists. In his household, there also lived Moses Williams (1777 – ca.1825), the son of a couple that Peale enslaved. Although Peale emancipated the boy’s parents and siblings in 1786, he held Williams in bondage until he was twenty-seven.

Williams was raised alongside the Peale children but did not receive the same fine art education as they did. He was trained primarily in using a physiognotrace (a silhouette-making machine), a mechanical art form considered less prestigious and profitable than other mediums. After receiving his freedom, Williams worked in Peale’s museum, where he cut silhouettes and gained a reputation as a master of this art. Earning between six and eight cents for every silhouette, Williams was eventually able to buy a two-story brick house, and to marry and raise a family.