Raphaelle Peale was taught to paint by his father, Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827), an accomplished soldier, scientist, artist, and founder of a dynasty of early American painters. By the age of twenty-one, Raphaelle Peale was recognized as America’s leading still life painter and the first to practice the genre. Peale was greatly interested in delineating the colors and textures of food. The majority of his paintings depict fruit, and such paintings would typically have been used as decoration in dining rooms. Cutlet and Vegetables is one of only two known paintings by the artist of meat and vegetables, and this example is the largest of his known still-life panels, and in exceptionally good condition.