John Neagle was an American portrait painter during the first half of the 19th century in Philadelphia.
Background
John Neagle was born on November 4, 1796 in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. His father was a native of Doneraile, County Cork, Ireland; his mother, née Taylor, was the daughter of a New Jersey farmer. His father died when John was four years old and his mother married again. Her second husband, a grocer, was "no friend to John or to the arts. " From Edward F. Petticolas, afterwards a well-known portrait painter and miniaturist in Richmond, Virginia, the boy received his first elementary instruction in drawing.
Education
After leaving the grammar school he was sent to a drawing school conducted by Pietro Ancora. He was apprenticed to one Thomas Wilson, "coach and ornamental painter. " This man had artistic aspirations, and was taking painting lessons of Bass Otis, the portrait painter. Like master, like man: young Neagle, brought into casual contact with Otis, began to form plans to make an artist of himself. Out of his regular working hours he gave much time and energy to independent drawing and painting. During his apprenticeship, which lasted more than five years, his employer allowed him to take painting lessons from Otis for about two months, and Otis took him to call on Thomas Sully in his studio.
Career
For a short time John worked in his step-father's grocery store.
He made his first essays in portraiture and his work had won the praise of Otis, Sully, and C. W. Peale. From the first he had a remarkable faculty for getting a good likeness. When his apprenticeship came to its end in 1818, he undertook what was then an arduous journey, traveling over the mountains all the way to Lexington, Kentucky, with the intention of settling there as a portrait painter; but to his surprise he found Matthew Harris Jouett, an accomplished painter, was already well established in that part of the country, and it seemed useless to attempt to compete with him. Accordingly, Neagle determined to try New Orleans, but there he was wholly unknown and had no success in getting sitters. He returned, therefore, by sea to Philadelphia, deeply discouraged. William Dunlap gives a picturesque account of this episode, which must have been given him by Neagle himself, with full details as to the precarious methods of financing his travels.
After his return to Philadelphia the artist had little difficulty in securing all the sitters he could conveniently attend to. Beginning by charging only fifteen dollars for a head, he gradually increased his stipend as he became better known, until he could ask and get $100, which was then a handsome figure.
In 1826 his picture, "Pat Lyon the Blacksmith, " a full-length portrait commission, had a most enthusiastic reception and added greatly to his reputation. It was exhibited in Philadelphia and New York, and, owing partly to its intrinsic merit as a picture, but probably still more to certain interesting stories about Pat Lyon, had an amazing success. Lyon was a picturesque local figure. A master locksmith, he had been unjustly convicted of complicity in a bank robbery in Philadelphia and sentenced to a term in prison. When the real culprits were discovered, he was set free and awarded damages. The background of Neagle's picture is a glimpse of the city prison, seen through an open door or window. One can in imagination hear the brawny smith telling with relish of his adventures as he poses in his shirtsleeves and grimy leather apron to Neagle. Neagle was fond of a good story. He went to Boston to see Gilbert Stuart, and there painted the best existing likeness of Stuart, now in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. His notes of his studio intercourse with Stuart, which he placed at Dunlap's disposal, are of great value; he could not resist the temptation to record also the preposterous yarn told him by Stuart apropos of the pernicious habit of taking snuff. Neagle had his full share of eminent sitters, most of them Philadelphians. His portrait of Washington hangs in Independence Hall; that of Henry Clay is in the possession of the Union League Club. A replica of "Pat Lyon the Blacksmith" is in the Boston Athen'um. The Corcoran Gallery, Washington, owns his portrait of Col. Richard M. Johnson, vice-president of the United States, 1837-41. In the Thomas B. Clarke collection of early American portraits there are eight by Neagle, including those of John Davis, governor of Massachusetts and United States senator, William Rush, the Philadelphia sculptor, and several other men of mark.
For some years before his death Neagle was paralyzed. He died in Philadelphia in 1865.
Achievements
Connections
In May 1826 he married Mary Chester Sully, niece and step-daughter of Thomas Sully.