John Neagle was a fashionable American painter

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

, primarily of portraits, during the first half of the 19th century in Philadelphia.

Biography

Neagle was born in Boston, Massachusetts. His training in art began with instruction from the drawing-master Pietro Ancora and an apprenticeship to Thomas Wilson, a well-connected painter of signs and coaches in Philadelphia. Wilson introduced him to the painters Bass Otis

Bass Otis

Bass Otis , was an early American artist, inventor, and portrait painter. He painted hundreds of portraits including many of the best known Americans of his day, and produced the first American lithograph in 1819....

 and Thomas Sully

Thomas Sully

Thomas Sully was an American painter, mostly of portraits.-Early life:Sully was born in Horncastle, Lincolnshire, England, to the actors Matthew and Sarah Sully. In March 1792 the Sullys and their nine children immigrated to Richmond, Virginia, where Thomas’s uncle managed a theater...

, and Neagle became a protégé of the latter. In 1818 Neagle decided to concentrate exclusively on portrait

Portrait

thumb|250px|right|Portrait of [[Thomas Jefferson]] by [[Rembrandt Peale]], 1805. [[New-York Historical Society]].A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness,...

s, setting up shop as an independent master.

Aside from brief sojourns in Lexington, Kentucky

Lexington, Kentucky

Lexington is the second-largest city in Kentucky and the 63rd largest in the US. Known as the "Thoroughbred City" and the "Horse Capital of the World", it is located in the heart of Kentucky's Bluegrass region...

, and New Orleans, Louisiana

New Orleans, Louisiana

New Orleans is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The New Orleans metropolitan area has a population of 1,235,650 as of 2009, the 46th largest in the USA. The New Orleans – Metairie – Bogalusa combined statistical area has a population...

, he spent his career in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

, where he died. In May 1826 he married Sully's stepdaughter Mary, and for a time the son-in-law and father-in-law dominated the field of portraiture in the city. Neagle served as Director of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and was also a founder and president (1835–43) of the Artist's Fund Society of Philadelphia .

Works

Neagle's sitters included society figures, politicians, professionals and merchants, all of whom he treated with an incisive attention to psychology and an often dazzling brushwork derived (by way of Sully and Sir Thomas Lawrence) ultimately from van Dyck. His most impressive works are, arguably, the full-length allegorical portrait of Henry Clay

Henry Clay

Henry Clay, Sr. , was a lawyer, politician and skilled orator who represented Kentucky separately in both the Senate and in the House of Representatives...

 (Union League

Union League

A Union League is one of a number of organizations established starting in 1862, during the American Civil War to promote loyalty to the Union and the policies of Abraham Lincoln. They were also known as Loyal Leagues. They comprised upper middle class men who supported efforts such as the United...

, Philadelphia), and the unconventional and brutally heroic "Pat Lyon at the Forge" (Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts).

Lyon was a young Philadelphia blacksmith who manufactured the locks for a bank vault housed in Carpenters' Hall

Carpenters' Hall

Carpenters' Hall is a two-story brick building in the Old City neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that was a key meeting place in the early history of the United States. Completed in 1773 and set back from Chestnut Street, the meeting hall was built for and is still owned by the...

. During a 1798 yellow fever epidemic that emptied the city, the bank deposits were stolen. Lyon, who had lost his wife and child in the epidemic, was accused of the robbery, and held, without evidence, in Walnut Street Prison. Even after the real culprits were arrested, Lyon continued to be imprisoned. He sued, won his release, and received punitive damages from the city. Neagle's portrait/genre painting shows a middle-aged Lyon at work at his forge, with the cupola of Walnut Street Prison visible in the background.

Other Neagle sitters included Vice President Richard Mentor Johnson

Richard Mentor Johnson

Richard Mentor Johnson was the ninth Vice President of the United States, serving in the administration of Martin Van Buren . He was the only vice-president ever elected by the United States Senate under the provisions of the Twelfth Amendment. Johnson also represented Kentucky in the U.S...

, Governor John Jordan Crittenden of Kentucky, Congressman James Harper

James Harper

James Harper may refer to:* James Harper , mayor of New York City* James Harper * James Harper * James Harper , US congressman from Pennsylvania* James C...

 and his wife Charlotte, the Marquis de Lafayette, Bishop William Meade

William Meade

William Meade , was a United States Episcopal bishop.The son of Richard Kidder Meade , one of George Washington's aides during the War of Independence, he was born near Millwood, in what is now Clarke County, Virginia. He graduated as valedictorian in 1808 at the college of New Jersey ; studied...

, Dr. William Potts Dewees

William Potts Dewees

William Potts Dewees was an American physician, best known for his work in obstetrics.Dewees received a Bachelor of Medicine and in 1806 an M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, where he would become Professor of Obstetrics, and Chair of Obstetrics from 1834 to 1841...

, author James Fenimore Cooper

James Fenimore Cooper

James Fenimore Cooper was a prolific and popular American writer of the early 19th century. He is best remembered as a novelist who wrote numerous sea-stories and the historical novels known as the Leatherstocking Tales, featuring frontiersman Natty Bumppo...

, fellow painter Gilbert Stuart

Gilbert Stuart

Gilbert Charles Stuart was an American painter from Rhode Island.Gilbert Stuart is widely considered to be one of America's foremost portraitists...

, actor Edwin Forrest

Edwin Forrest

Edwin Forrest was an American actor.-Early life:Forrest was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, of Scottish and German descent. His father died and he was brought up by his mother, a German woman of humble origins. He was educated at the common schools in Philadelphia, and early evinced a taste...

 and the architects William Strickland

William Strickland (architect)

William Strickland , was a noted architect in nineteenth-century Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Nashville, Tennessee.-Life and career:...

, John Haviland and Thomas Ustick Walter. His papers are housed at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania

Historical Society of Pennsylvania

The Historical Society of Pennsylvania is a historical society founded in 1824 and based in Philadelphia. The Society's building, designed by Addison Hutton and listed on Philadelphia's Register of Historical Places, houses some 600,000 printed items and over 19 million manuscript and graphic items...

, which hosted a retrospective exhibition of his work in 1989 (with scholarly catalogue by Robert Torchia).

External links