Background
Pierre Eugene Du Simitiere was born in 1736 in Geneva, Switzerland.
Pierre Eugene Du Simitiere was born in 1736 in Geneva, Switzerland.
Of his life before Du Simitiere came to America in 1765, little is known excepting that he spent about ten years traveling and collecting natural history specimens in the West Indies, subsisting by painting portraits and cutting silhouettes. He landed in New York but soon made his way to Burlington, New Jersey, where he remained for a short time, and then, in 1766, went to Philadelphia. His first stay in that city seems to have been comparatively short, for he was in Boston in 1767-1768 and on May 20, 1769, was back in New York, where he became a naturalized citizen.
Some years later, however, in 1777, when he was drafted into the Pennsylvania militia, he presented a petition to the Supreme Council claiming immunity because he was a foreigner. The greater part of his life in America was spent in Philadelphia. He designed the vignette for the title page of the Pennsylvania Magazine, published in 1775-1776 by Robert Aitken, and the frontispiece for the United States Magazine, 1779. He submitted to the Continental Congress, at its request, designs for a medal to commemorate the Declaration of Independence and for a Great Seal for the United States, but neither of his designs was adopted.
Du Simitiere was one of the first good portrait-painters to come to America. He drew a series of thirteen portraits of men prominent in the American Revolution, which were engraved and published in London in 1783. Among them were Washington, Steuben, Deane, Laurens, and Benedict Arnold. The collection of materials for a history of this revolution was purchased by the Library Company of Philadelphia after Du Simitiere's death. It includes an "almost unique collection of newspapers and rare pamphlets".
A desire to form a museum appears to have been the chief aim in the artist's life, and in 1782 he advertised his collections of curiosities, under the title of "American Museum, " as on view at his residence in Philadelphia. He may thus be considered the founder of the first museum in the United States, probably antedating Peale's Museum by two or three years. He was among the first to realize the importance of gathering collections illustrative of the life and customs of the American Indian, whom he regarded as doomed to extinction by the inroads of Europeans.
Pierre Eugene Du Simitiere is best remembered as the artistic consultant for the committees that designed the Great Seal of the United States, and in 1776 he submitted the first proposed design to include the Eye of Providence, which element was eventually adopted. He suggested the adoption of the U. S. motto E pluribus unum. He also designed the Seal of New Jersey, of Delaware, and of Georgia. In 1779, du Simitiere painted the first known portrait of George Washington, later used for the 1791 one-cent coin.
Du Simitiere was a member of the American Philosophical Society.
Whether as antiquary, artist, or naturalist, Du Simitiere was thorough, energetic, intelligent, and talented.
Quotes from others about the person
"This M. Du Simitiere is a very curious man. He has begun a collection of materials for a history of this revolution. He begins with the first advices of the tea ships. He cuts out of the newspapers every scrap of intelligence, and every piece of speculation, and pastes it upon clean paper, arranging them under the head of that State to which they belong, and intends to bind them in volumes. " - John Adams
