George Loring Brown was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1814. After his early education, Brown was apprenticed to wood engravers and illustrators of children’s books, Abel Bowen and his junior partner, Alonzo Hartwell. Both exerted a considerable influence on the young precocious untrained artist.

Bowen, the senior artist, was from New York, born in 1790 at Sand Lake Village, Greenbush, New York. He was a serious and successful graphic artist who established a well-known illustration business in Boston before he hired and trained George Loring Brown as a skilled illustrator and printmaker.

Hartwell was born in Littleton, Massachusetts in 1805. After several years with Bowen, Hartwell opened his own print and lithography bus...