At the dawn of the twentieth century, J.G. Brown (American, 1831-1913) was America's richest and best-known genre painter. Born and raised in England, Brown trained in a glass-cutting factory in Newcastle-on-Tyne, though he took evening art classes both in Newcastle and, later, at the Trustees Academy in Edinburgh. In 1853, following a brief stint in London as a portrait painter, he sailed for America and settled in Brooklyn. By 1860 he had moved to New York and secured working space in the newly opened Tenth Street Studio Building, the city's most prestigious atelier.