Edward Savage (artist)

Edward Savage (* November 26, 1761 in Princeton, † July 6, 1817 ) was an American painter and engraver.

He first worked as a goldsmith and also practiced as an engraver. Although he was apparently untrained in painting, he was in 1790 known for his portrait of George Washington, which was intended as a gift to Harvard University. In 1791 he visited London, where he studied for a time under Benjamin West, then he went Italy. After his return to the United States in 1794, he worked in Philadelphia and New York City, where he had a picture gallery and an art museum on Water Street entertained a number of years. He married Sarah Seaver on November 14, 1794 in Boston.

Robert Edge Pine began in 1784, the first depiction of the " Congress Voting Independence" (now a part of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania Collection, Atwater Kent Museum, Philadelphia ), but since picture was unfinished at his death. Savage finished the painting in 1801, and the mezzotint of the image has been commoditized. His portraits of Anthony Wayne, Benjamin Rush and Thomas Jefferson were greatly appreciated. But Savage was known for the life-size group portrait "The Washington Family" ( begun in 1789, completed 1796). He portrayed while President George Washington, the First Lady Martha Washington, two of her grandson, George Washington Parke Custis and Eleanor Parke Custis Lewis and an enslaved servant, probably Christopher Sheels. The painting was part of the collection of William F. Havemeyer in New York, until it was purchased by Andrew W. Mellon, the finally the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC donated.

Source

• Ancestry.com

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• Painter
• Copper engraver
• Goldsmith
• Engraver
• American painter
• Born in 1761
• Died in 1817
• Man