Born in New York City, Robert Weir became more recognized for his teaching of art than his own paintings. As a youngster, he was befriended by painter John Wesley Jarvis and also received instruction from Robert Cooke, an English heraldic* artist. When he was a teenager, Weir's painting was so remarkable that his canvases sold in New York as the work of the Old Masters*.

From 1824 to 1827, he studied in Italy and in 1825 he worked with Pietro Benvenuti in Florence. Later he moved to Rome, where he lived with Horatio Greenough.

Returning to New York he set up his own studio. In 1834, he began a 42-year teaching career at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and his pupils included Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E Lee, and James...