Brief Biography-John Vanderlyn was born in New York in 1775. He first studied with the portraitist Gilbert Stuart in Philadelphia. His work gained him the favour of the politician Aron Burr, who funded his trip to Paris, where John studied under the neoclassical painter François André Vincent at the École des-Beaux Arts. He returned home between 1800 and 1803 and painted scenes of Niagara Falls to bring back to Europe. On his return to Europe, John associated with the artist Washington Allston from South Carolina in London and spent several years in Rome and Paris. In 1815, he returned to America to exhibit his works but was unsuccessful in selling paintings. His view paintings were not as popular with Americans as with Europeans. He spent much of his wealth on a building to display pictures in New York City; unfortunately, it became a failed venture. He had to resort to inferior portraiture to scratch a living and sadly died in relative poverty in New York in 1852.