James Earl

James Earl was the younger brother by 10 years of the artist Ralph Earl. Their ancestors were Quakers who left Exeter, England, for Rhode Island around 1634. The family eventually settled in Massachusetts, and James was born in Worcester County in 1761. He may have been trained by his older brother. As many of Earl’s portraits depict former American colonists who fled to London immediately after the American Revolution, it is believed that he may have had loyalist sympathies.