Born in Alexandria, Virginia, John Gadsby Chapman was a highly productive painter, illustrator, and engraver*, living primarily as an expatriate* in Italy. He was a student of Charles Bird King in Washington DC, worked briefly as a professional artist in Winchester, Virginia, and was enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts* in Philadelphia. However, as a young man, he left for Italy, studying in Rome and Florence, and returning to America in 1831.

In the U.S., he became a reputable portrait and history painter, living between New York and Washington D.C. One of his best known works is a large, highly colorful mural, The Baptism of Pocahontas, which is in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol, and whi...