(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 As Ferris wrote in his unpublished autobiography, "[G??rôme's] axiom was that one would paint best that with which he is most familiar".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 :. | Franklins Return to Philadelphia | The Mayflower Compact, 1620 | Betsy Ross 1777 | Washington's Inaugration at Philadelphia | Building the Cradle of Liberty |
Related Artists:
Josabeth Sjoberg
1812-1882
VERSPRONCK, Jan Cornelisz
b. ca. 1597, Haarlem, d. 1662, Haarlem
Nathaniel Bacon
(1585-1627) was a wealthy landowner from Culford, Suffolk, England. self-portraitBacon was an exceptionally skillful amateur painter and gardener. Only a small group of 9 of his paintings survive. He was particularly known for his kitchen and market scenes, dominated by still-life depictions of large vegetables and fruit, often accompanied by a buxom maid, the most well known being "The Cookmaid with Still Life of Vegetables and Fruit" (Tate Gallery London). This predilection for cook or market scenes is much more common among Dutch and Flemish painters, see for example Joachim Beuckelaer (1533-1574), or from a later generation, Pieter Cornelisz van Rijck (1567-ca.1637), and Cornelis Jacobsz Delff. Bacon is credited with the first known British landscape and also painted a self-portrait and a number of other portraits. He was created a Knight of the Bath in 1625, in honour of the Coronation of Charles I. He died at Culford Hall at the age of 42. He was buried there on 1 July 1627. His little daughter, Jane, aged three years, died that same October and is buried alongside her father. The entries of their burials follow each other in the Culford Parish Burial Register. He was the son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, 1st Baronet.