George Loring Brown (1814-1889)
Nicknamed "Claude" Brown for the French landscape painter, Claude Lorraine,
whom he admired, Brown was among the most celebrated of American painters living abroad in
the 19th century.
He began his artistic career as an apprentice to Abel Bowen and received further training from Eugene Isabey in Paris during his first trip to Europe in 1832 to 1833. On his return to Boston, Brown was inspired and encouraged by the aging Washington Allston, and Brown exhibited frequently at the Boston Athenaeum. In 1839 he returned to Europe and settled in Italy, making a comfortable living for nearly twenty years by painting Italian landscapes to sell to both American and European tourists.
In
1859 Brown returned to the United States, and in the 1860s and 1870s he made many
sketching trips to the White Mountains. Perhaps Brown's greatest New Hampshire scene
was The Crown of New England, a huge panoramic view of Mount Washington, which
was purchased by the Prince of Wales in 1861 (now unlocated, but a smaller version
of which is in
the Dartmouth College Art Galleries).
Brown exhibited at the Boston Athenaeum, the
Brooklyn Art Association, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and the National Academy
of Design. He primarily painted Italian scenes in later life, responding to the
public's preference for his European views.
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