(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 As Ferris wrote in his unpublished autobiography, "[G??rôme's] axiom was that one would paint best that with which he is most familiar".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 :. | Franklin's Return to Philadelphia, 1785 | The Landing of William Penn | Birth of Pennsylvania | The Mayflower Compact, 1620 | Baigneuses |
Related Artists:
John Maler Collier
(27 January 1850 - 11 April 1934), called 'Jack' by his family and friends, was a leading English artist, and an author. He painted in the Pre-Raphaelite style, and was one of the most prominent portrait painters of his generation. Both his marriages were to daughters of Thomas Henry Huxley. He studied painting at the Munich Academy where he enrolled on 14 April 1875 (Register: 3145) at the age of 25. Collier was from a talented and successful family. His grandfather, John Collier, was a Quaker merchant who became a Member of Parliament. His father (who was a Member of Parliament, Attorney General and, for many years, a full-time judge of the Privy Council) was created the first Lord Monkswell. He was also a member of the Royal Society of British Artists. John Collier's elder brother, the second Lord Monkswell, was Under-Secretary of State for War and Chairman of the London County Council. Collier's first wife, Marian Huxley, 1883In due course, Collier became an integral part of the family of Thomas Henry Huxley PC, sometime President of the Royal Society. Collier married two of Huxley's daughters and was "on terms of intimate friendship" with his son, the writer Leonard Huxley. Collier's first wife, in 1879, was Marian (Mady) Huxley. She was a painter who studied, like her husband, at the Slade and exhibited at the Royal Academy and elsewhere. After the birth of their only child, a daughter, she suffered severe post-natal depression and was taken to Paris for treatment where, however, she contracted pneumonia and died in 1887. In 1889 Collier married Mady's younger sister Ethel Huxley. Until the Deceased Wife's Sister's Marriage Act 1907 such a marriage was not possible in England, so the ceremony took place in Norway. Collier's daughter by his first marriage, Joyce, was a portrait miniaturist, and a member of the Royal Society of Miniature Painters. By his second wife he had a daughter and a son, Sir Laurence Collier KCMG, who was the British Ambassador to Norway 1941-51.
Alfred Dehodencq
French Painter. Paris 1822 - Paris 1882. Specializes in Orientalism. French painter born in Paris. Well known for his vivid oil paintings depicting slices of life in the world around him. During his early years , Dehodencq studied in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux Arts under the tutelage of famous French artist Leon Cogniet. Following the French revolution of 1848 he spent five years in Spain where he became acquainted with the works of Spanish painters Diego Vel??zquez and Francisco Goya which had a strong influence on his approach to painting. In 1853 he travelled to Morocco where for the following ten years he produced many of his most famous paintings depicting scenes of the world he encountered. While he considered himself to be a 'Last of the Romantics', his work is generally categorized in the mid 19th century realists artistic movement. Dehodencq was the first foreign artist known to have lived in Morocco for an extended number of years. He returned to Paris in 1863. He died in 1882
Domingos Sequeira
Domingos Sequeira (1768-1837).