Jarvis was born in 1781, in South Shields, England, the son of John and Ann Jarvis. He was baptised on July 1, 1781, at St. Hilda's church. His parents, emigrating to America soon after his birth, left him in charge of his maternal relative (probably his great-uncle), John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, until he reached the age of five. He was then brought to Philadelphia, where his father had found employment.
The boy appears to have been left to himself most of the time, and out of school hours Jarvis fell in with Matthew Pratt, the portrait painter, Clark, a miniaturist, and three others, unknown to fame, who made a living by painting signs, but who also occasionally essayed portrait painting. Young Jarvis, delighted to be able to make himself useful to these men, worked for all of them from time to time in such wise as he was able. Jarvis was an enterprising and self-confident boy, and having been impressed by the prints displayed in the Philadelphia shop windows, he shortly informed his father that he wished to become an engraver. Accordingly he was apprenticed to the print publisher, Edward Savage, who, in 1800, moved from Philadelphia to New York, taking his employees with him. David Edwin, a young English engraver, who had just arrived in America, was a fellow-apprentice in Savage's shop, and from him Jarvis derived most of his knowledge of drawing and engraving.
As soon as the time of his apprenticeship expired Jarvis began to engrave on his own account, and it was not long before he turned to portrait painting. About 1805 he entered into a sort of partnership with another young artist, Joseph Wood, and they took a studio in Park Row, New York. They made miniatures, having had some slight instruction in this branch of work from Edward Malbone; they also made profile portraits on glass, which were popular at that time. Their success was so great that they often took in as much as one hundred dollars a day. A little later Jarvis set up a studio for himself in Broadway and for a while was busily employed in making portraits on bristol board at five dollars each. He also produced portraits in oil or miniatures on ivory when they were preferred. In 1807 Thomas Sully, being without work, was taken on as an assistant by Jarvis, but this arrangement was of short duration. They parted, and Sully went to Philadelphia, while Jarvis continued on his way in New York. Around 1808, he made a successful trip to Baltimore to paint portraits. In 1810 he went to Charleston, South Carolina, and a few years later he pushed on as far as New Orleans, taking with him young Henry Inman, who was then his apprentice and assistant. These southern trips became a regular fixture each winter. Jarvis was accustomed to receive six sitters a day, and with Inman's aid he turned out half-a-dozen portraits a week. His facility was prodigious. His income grew to impressive proportions. But he was extravagant and reckless; moreover, as he advanced in years, he became a hard drinker. In his latter days, owing in part to his intemperance and in part to illness, he gradually lost his hold on his clientele, sank into comparative obscurity, and finally died in poverty at the home of his sister, a Mrs. Childs, in New York, on January 14, 1839.
Jarvis was a typical bohemian - talented, brilliant, and popular, a picturesque figure, fond of notoriety and enjoying a great reputation as a story-teller and practical joker.
Jarvis was married in 1808, but the match was apparently unhappy, for his wife eventually left him, taking the children with her.
