John Wesley Jarvis

John Wesley Jarvis
John Wesley Jarvis, by Henry Inman, 1822
Born	1781 (1781) ? South Shields, England
Died	1839 (1840)
Nationality	American
Known for	Painting

John Wesley Jarvis (1780 or 1781 – January 14, 1839) was an American painter.

John Wesley Jarvis (nephew of Methodist leader John Wesley), was born at South Shields, England. His father was an American mariner, who moved his family to the United States in the mid-1780s. The Jarvis family settled in Philadelphia; there he spent his childhood and began his artistic training. He is known to have frequented the studio of the aging colonial-era portrait painter Matthew Pratt and he knew the Danish painter Christian Gullager. 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.

Jarvis moved to New York in 1801 with Edward Savage. Within a year he was working on his own as an engraver. In 1803 he entered into a partnership with Joseph Wood. His partnership with Wood lasted seven years. Together they executed engravings, miniatures, and larger portraits. Jarvis had learned the technique of miniature painting from Edward Malbone; and by the time of the Jarvis/Wood partnership, he was also producing his first oil paintings. In addition, he operated a drawing school and executed inexpensive silhouette portraits. In New York City he enjoyed great popularity, though his conviviality and eccentric mode of life affected his work. He visited Baltimore, Charleston, and New Orleans, entertaining much and painting portraits of prominent people, particularly in New Orleans, where General Andrew Jackson was one of his sitters. Isaac Collins, the New York City printer, became a favorite subject for Jarvis to sketch a portrait of in 1806. He had for assistants at different times both Thomas Sully and Henry Inman. He affected singularity in dress and manners, and his mots were the talk of the day.