Mather Brown

A descendant of the famous Puritan minister Increase Mather, Mather Brown was born and raised in Boston. He studied briefly with John Singleton Copley and with Gilbert Stuart. After spending several years in New England and the West Indies as an itinerant portrait and miniature painter, Brown traveled to London, where he was accepted as a student in Benjamin West's studio. In 1782 he became the first American to enroll in the Royal Academy school. Two years later he opened his own studio. Brown's first major commissions were portraits of Thomas Jefferson, members of the family of John Adams, and other Americans in London. In 1788 he moved to the fashionable neighborhood of Cavendish Square, where the British portraitist George Romney also lived, and his commissions from British patrons increased. Brown was named the official portraitist to the dukes of York and Clarence, the king's second and third sons; he also painted portraits of the Prince of Wales and of King George III. He received a number of commissions for history paintings and executed one Shakespearean scene for John Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery. Many of these compositions were later engraved.

In the early 1790s Brown was unsuccessful, despite several attempts, at promoting his election to the Royal Academy; by the end of the decade he found himself decidedly lacking in patronage. Unlike his more extravagant contemporary Gilbert Stuart, Brown lived scrupulously; he managed to avoid debtor's prison but never regained the success of his early career. He spent a number of years in the provinces visiting friends and relatives, searching for portrait commissions, and working as a drawing master. He returned to London in 1824 and died in a boarding house.