John Wesley Jarvis Shields (1780-1840)

• Was an American Painter.
• John Wesley Jarvis was born at South Shields, England.
• His father was an English mariner, who moved his family to the United States in the mid-1780s.
• The Jarvis family settled in Philadelphia.
• His formal instruction began around 1796, when he became apprenticed to Edward Savage.
• He also spent times with David Edwin, an English engraver also employed by Savage.
• He was celebrated as a hilarious storyteller, and his ties to the theater world were many.
• Examples of his painting are in the collections of the New York Historical Society, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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