(August 18, 1863 - March 18, 1930) was an American painter best known for his series of 78 scenes from American history, entitled The Pageant of a Nation, the largest series of American historical paintings by a single artist. He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Stephen James Ferris, a portrait painter and a devotee of Jean-L??on G??rôme (after whom he was named) and Mariano Fortuny.He grew up around art, having been trained by his father and having two acclaimed painters, Edward Moran and Thomas Moran, as uncles. Ferris enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1879 and trained further at the Acad??mie Julian beginning in 1883 under William-Adolphe Bouguereau.He also met his namesake G??rôme, who greatly influenced Ferris's decision to paint scenes from American history. As Ferris wrote in his unpublished autobiography, "[G??rôme's] axiom was that one would paint best that with which he is most familiar". However, initially his subjects were Orientalist in nature, that movement having been in vogue when he was young. Some of his material was original, some of it took after Fortuny, but he was skilled enough, despite never having had any experience with Asia. In 1882, he exhibited a painting entitled Feeding the Ibis, which was valued at $600. By 1895, Ferris had gained a reputation as a historical painter, and he embarked on his dream of creating a series of paintings that told a historical narrative. In 1898 he sold one of these, General Howe's Levee, 1777, but he later regretted it, realizing that such a series could not be complete if the separate paintings could not be kept together. As such, he never sold another one of those, but he did sell the reproduction rights to various publishing companies. This later would have the effect of greatly popularizing his work, as these companies made prints, postcards, calendars and blank-backed trade cards use in advertisements. Laminated cards of these works were still being sold as late as 1984. The Landing of William PennThe paintings showed idealized portrayals of famous moments from American history, but were often historically inaccurate. The Landing of William Penn, for example, shows Penn being greeted at New Castle by American Indians who are clothed in the tradition of tribes from the Great Plains. In The First Thanksgiving 1621, the black outfits the Pilgrims are shown wearing are wrong, and the Wampanoag did not wear feathered war bonnets, nor would they have been sitting on the ground. The complete series was shown at Independence Hall in Philadelphia from 1913 to 1930, then moved next door to Congress Hall. In later years it was shown in a number of locations, including the Smithsonian Institution, before being returned to the Ferris family.  Related Paintings of Jean Leon Gerome Ferris :. | Captain Kidd in New York Harbor | Franklins Return to Philadelphia | The First Thanksgiving | The Birth of Pennsylvania 1680 | The Fall of New Amsterdam |
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Lydia Field Emmet
(January 23, 1866 - August 16, 1952) was an American artist best known for her work as a portraitist. She studied with, among others, prominent artists such as William Merritt Chase, Henry Siddons Mowbray, Kenyon Cox and Tony Robert-Fleury. Emmet exhibited widely during her career, and her paintings can now be found hanging in the White House, and many prestigious art galleries, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Emmet was born on January 23, 1866, at New Rochelle, New York, the seventh of ten children born to merchant William Jenkins Emmet and illustrator Julia Colt Pierson.
Johann Georg von Dillis
(born Gmain, December 26, 1759 - died Munich, September 28, 1841) was a German painter. Son of a gamekeeper and forester, he was educated in Munich with support from the prince-elector of Bavaria. Initially he was trained for the priesthood, but by 1786 his real interest, art, was beginning to be developed, and he taught drawing both at court and to private families. In 1790 he was appointed inspector of the Hofgarten Galerie, the princely collection. He continued in a curatorial role for the Bavarian court for much of the rest of his career; this allowed him some freedom to travel and expand his knowledge of European art. In 1792 he traveled to Dresden, Prague, and Vienna, and in 1794 he made his first trip to Italy, where he made watercolor studies from nature. A further trip to Italy followed in 1805, and brought him to Rome, where he met Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes, who introduced him to the idea of painting in open air. He studied the work of Simon Denis and Joseph Mallaord William Turner, and encountered Washington Allston. The next year, in Paris, he saw oil sketches by Jean-Joseph-Xavier Bidauld, and with Ludwig, the crown prince visited the Musee Napoleon; he would later advise the prince on collecting and other matters artistic, remaining in this capacity for the rest of his life. He also made several trips to Italy to purchase art for the royal collection. In 1816 he was made responsible for packing and returning to Munich from Paris art stolen from Bavaria by Napoleon. In the fall of 1817 he and Ludwig traveled to Sicily before spending four months in Rome. Dillis helped to shape the collections of the Alte Pinakothek, which opened in 1836. He died in Munich in 1841.
Fedor Alekseev
(c. 1753 ?C November 23, 1824) was an early Russian painter of landscape art. After training in the Saint Petersburg Imperial Academy of Arts, he spent three years in Venice studying the works of famous French and Italian landscape painters. Returning to Saint Petersburg to work, his popularity grew over time. In 1800, Emperor Paul of Russia commissioned a series of paintings of Moscow from him.