John Neagle (November 4, 1796 – September 17, 1865) was a fashionable American

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

, 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 (July 17, 1784 - November 3, 1861), 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 181 ...

and

Thomas Sully Thomas Sully (June 19, 1783November 5, 1872) was a portrait painter in the United States. Born in Great Britain, he lived most of his life in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He painted in the style of Thomas Lawrence. His subjects included nationa ...

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

portrait A portrait is a portrait painting, painting, portrait photography, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, Personality type ...

s, setting up shop as an independent master. Aside from brief sojourns in

Lexington, Kentucky Lexington is a city in Kentucky, United States that is the county seat of Fayette County, Kentucky, Fayette County. By population, it is the List of cities in Kentucky, second-largest city in Kentucky and List of United States cities by popul ...

, and

New Orleans, Louisiana New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

, he spent his career in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

, 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 the Fine Arts The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is a museum and private art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.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 Sir Anthony van Dyck (, many variant spellings; 22 March 1599 – 9 December 1641) was a Brabantian Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England after success in the Southern Netherlands and Italy. The seventh ...

. His most impressive works are, arguably, the full-length allegorical ''Portrait of

Henry Clay Henry Clay Sr. (April 12, 1777June 29, 1852) was an American attorney and statesman who represented Kentucky in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. He was the seventh House speaker as well as the ninth secretary of state, al ...

'' (

Union League The Union Leagues were quasi-secretive men’s clubs established separately, starting in 1862, and continuing throughout the Civil War (1861–1865). The oldest Union League of America council member, an organization originally called "The Leag ...

, Philadelphia), and the unconventional and brutally heroic '' Pat Lyon at the Forge'' (

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is a museum and private art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.Richard Mentor Johnson Richard Mentor Johnson (October 17, 1780 – November 19, 1850) was an American lawyer, military officer and politician who served as the ninth vice president of the United States, serving from 1837 to 1841 under President Martin Van Buren ...

, Governor

John Jordan Crittenden John Jordan Crittenden (September 10, 1787 July 26, 1863) was an American statesman and politician from the U.S. state of Kentucky. He represented the state in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate and twice served as United ...

of Kentucky, Congressman James Harper and his wife Charlotte, the

Marquis de Lafayette Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette (6 September 1757 – 20 May 1834), known in the United States as Lafayette (, ), was a French aristocrat, freemason and military officer who fought in the American Revoluti ...

, Bishop

William Meade William Meade (November 11, 1789March 14, 1862) was an American Episcopal bishop, the third Bishop of Virginia. Early life His father, Colonel Richard Kidder Meade (1746–1805), one of George Washington's aides during the War of Independence, ...

, Dr.

William Potts Dewees William Potts Dewees (May 5, 1768 – May 18, 1841) was an American physician, best known for his work in obstetrics, being described in American Medical Biographies as a "Philadelphian obstetrician hatwas so famous that no parturient woman of ...

, author

James Fenimore Cooper James Fenimore Cooper (September 15, 1789 – September 14, 1851) was an American writer of the first half of the 19th century, whose historical romances depicting colonist and Indigenous characters from the 17th to the 19th centuries brought h ...

, fellow painter

Gilbert Stuart Gilbert Charles Stuart ( Stewart; December 3, 1755 – July 9, 1828) was an American painter from Rhode Island Colony who is widely considered one of America's foremost portraitists. His best-known work is an unfinished portrait of George Washi ...

, actor

Edwin Forrest Edwin Forrest (March 9, 1806December 12, 1872) was a prominent nineteenth-century American Shakespearean actor. His feud with the British actor William Macready was the cause of the deadly Astor Place Riot of 1849. Early life Forrest was born i ...

and the architects William Strickland,

John Haviland John Haviland (15 December 1792 – 28 March 1852) was an English-born American architect who was a major figure in American Neo-Classical architecture, and one of the most notable architects working from Philadelphia in the 19th century. Bio ...

and

Thomas Ustick Walter Thomas Ustick Walter (September 4, 1804 – October 30, 1887) was an American architect of German descent, the dean of American architecture between the 1820 death of Benjamin Latrobe and the emergence of H.H. Richardson in the 1870s. He was ...

as well as Pawnee Indian and hero of the whites Petalesharo.Ewers, John C. (1988): ''Indian Life on the Upper Missouri''. Norman and London. His papers are housed at the

Historical Society of Pennsylvania The Historical Society of Pennsylvania is a long-established research facility, based in Philadelphia. It is a repository for millions of historic items ranging across rare books, scholarly monographs, family chronicles, maps, press reports and v ...

, which hosted a retrospective exhibition of his work in 1989 (with scholarly catalogue by Robert Torchia). Sixteen paintings of actors in character by Neagle are housed in the library at The Players in New York City.

Gallery

File:John Neagle Gilbert Stuart.jpg, ''

;'' 1825,

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...

File:Mathew Carey by John Neagle, 1825.jpg, ''

Mathew Carey Mathew Carey (January 28, 1760 – September 16, 1839) was an Irish-born American publisher and economist who lived and worked in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was the father of economist Henry Charles Carey. Early life and education Carey ...

'', 1825 File:1828, Neagle, John, John Kintzing Kane.jpg, '' John Kintzing Kane'', 1828,

Princeton University Art Museum The Princeton University Art Museum (PUAM) is the Princeton University gallery of art, located in Princeton, New Jersey. With a collecting history that began in 1755, the museum was formally established in 1882, and now houses over 113,000 works o ...

File:John Haviland MET DT243863.jpg, ''

'' 1828,

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

File:John Neagle Dr. William Potts Dewees.jpg, '' Dr. William Potts Dewees'', 1833,

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

File:John Neagle The Studious Artist.jpg, ''The Studious Artist: Portrait of

Thomas Birch Thomas Birch (23 November 17059 January 1766) was an English historian. Life He was the son of Joseph Birch, a coffee-mill maker, and was born at Clerkenwell. He preferred study to business but, as his parents were Quakers, he did not go to t ...

'' 1836,

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is a museum and private art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.Henry Clay Henry Clay Sr. (April 12, 1777June 29, 1852) was an American attorney and statesman who represented Kentucky in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. He was the seventh House speaker as well as the ninth secretary of state, al ...

'' 1842, National Portrait Gallery File:John Neagle George Dodd.jpg, ''George Dodd'', c. 1852,

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of char ...

Washington, DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...

File:John Neagle Julia Dodd.jpg, ''Julia Dodd'' (Mrs. George Dodd), c. 1852,

File:Neagle.JPG, Portrait of a gentleman in black. Private collection

References

External links

*Th
John Neagle papers and related items
consisting mostly of volumes related to his work and cased photographs, are available for research use at the

{{DEFAULTSORT:Neagle, John 1796 births 1865 deaths Artists from Boston 19th-century American painters 19th-century American male artists American male painters Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts faculty Burials in Pennsylvania Artists from Philadelphia