1712-1793 Italian Francesco Guardi Galleries Francesco Guardi was born in Venice into a family of lesser nobility from Trentino. His father Domenico (born in 1678) and his brothers Niccolo and Gian Antonio were also painters, the latter inheriting the family workshop after the father's death in 1716. They probably all contributed as a team to some of the larger commissions later attributed to Francesco. His sister Maria Cecilia married the pre-eminent Veneto-European painter of his epoch, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. In 1735, Guardi moved to the workshop of Michele Marieschi, where he remained until 1743. His first certain works is from 1738, for a parish at Vigo d'Anuania, in Trentino. In this period he worked alongside his better-known brother, Gian Antonio. The first work signed by Francesco is a Saint Adoring the Eucarist (circa 1739). His works in this period included landscapes as well as figure representations. His early vedutas show influence both from Canaletto and Luca Carlevarijs. On February 15, 1757 he married Maria Mattea Pagani, the daughter of painter Matteo Pagani. In the same year his brother Gian Antonio died and his first son, Vincenzo, was born. His second son, Giacomo, was born in 1764. In 1763 he worked in Murano, in the church of San Pietro Martire, finishing a Miracle of a Dominican Saint clearly influenced by Alessandro Magnasco in its quasi-expressionistic style. Francesco Guardi's most important later works include the Doge's Feasts, a series of twelve canvases celebrating the ceremonies held in 1763 for the election of Doge Alvise IV Mocenigo. In his later years, Canaletto's influence on his art diminished, as showed by the Piazzetta in the Ca' d'Oro of Venice. In circa 1778, he painted the severe Holy Trinity Appearing to Sts. Peter and Paul in the parish church of Roncegno. Miracle of a Dominicane Saint (1763), Lugano, private collection.In 1782 Guardi was commissioned by the Venetian government six canvases to celebrate the visit of the Russian Archdukes in the city, of which only two remain, and two others for that of Pope Pius VI. On September 12 of that year he was admitted to the Fine Art Academy of Venice. A stronger attention to colours is present in late works such as the Concerto of 80 Orphans of 1782, now in Munich, in the Façade of Palace with Staircase in the Accademia Carrara of Bergamo. Guardi died at Venice in 1793.  Related Paintings of Francesco Guardi :. | Capriccio | Details of he Departure of the Doge on Ascension Day | View of the Palazzo Loredan dell'Ambasciatore on the Grand Canal, Venice, | Francesco Guardi portrayed by Roberto Longhi | Arched Bridge at Cannaregio |
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Spanish Painter, 1842-1902
Jean Leon Gerome Ferris
(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.
John Macallan Swan
British Academic Painter, 1847-1910 was an English painter and sculptor. John Macallan Swan was born in Brentford, Middlesex in 1847. He received his art training first in England at the Worcester and Lambeth schools of art and the Royal Academy schools, and subsequently in Paris, in the studios of Jean-L??on G??rôme and Emmanuel Fr??miet. He began to exhibit at the Academy in 1878, and was elected associate in 1894 and academician in 1905. He was appointed a member of the Dutch Water-Colour Society in 1885; and associate of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours in 1896 and full member in 1899. A master of the oil, water-colour and pastel mediums, an accomplished painter and a skilful draughtsman, he ranks also as a sculptor of distinguished ability. He has treated the human figure with notable power, but it is by his representations of the larger wild animals, mainly the felidae, that he chiefly established his reputation; in this branch of practice he has scarcely a rival. His picture "The Prodigal Son," bought for the Chantrey collection in 1889, is in the National Gallery of British Art.