"Battle of Harlem" c. 1860 steel engraving by J. R. Armytage, after Alonzo Chappel — Framed

Alonzo Chappel was born in New York City on March 1, 1828 to William P. and Maria Howes Chappel. The family resided at 165 The Bowery in lower Manhattan on property owned by Chappel's grandparents opposite the Old Bowery Theater.

William Chappel (1801-1878), a tinsmith of Huguenot descent, was a man of moderate means and unable to provide an extensive education for his two sons, Alonzo and George. However, from all indications he and Maria encouraged Alonzo's early efforts at portrait painting; at the age of nine, Alonzo reportedly contributed a portrait titled "The Father of His Country" to the American Institute Fair; by the age of twelve, he was regularly setting up his easel on the sidewalks of New York and charging $5.00 or $10.00 to execute a portrait of any willing passerby.

In 1842, the fourteen-year-old Chappel left school and learned japanning and window-shade painting. Two years later he was listed as an artist in the New York City Directory; by this time he had developed considerable skill and was charging $25.00 for a portrait. The following year Chappel enrolled in the antique class (designed to teach students to draw from casts of antique sculpture) at the National Academy of Design. This appears to be the extent of his formal art training.

The National Academy at that time was headed by Samuel F.B. Morse, a prominent artist today better known for his invention of the telegraph. In the 1820s he had concluded that New York's American Academy of Fine Arts (founded in 1802) no longer met the needs of young artists and students. Thus Morse and others decided to form a new and separate organization to be called the New York Drawing Association, predecessor of the National Academy of Design.

In addition to the exhibitions held at the National Academy, there were few picture galleries available as Chappel came into his maturity during the 1830s and 1840s. The American Art-Union (1839) held exhibitions free of charge, and in 1844 the New-York Gallery of the Fine Arts, organized after its purchase of Luman Reed's collection of American art, displayed its paintings in the old Rotunda in City Hall Park. Little else could be seen, although taken together these institutions provided a fair representation of the available portrait and history paintings produced during this period.

In 1848 Chappel lived at 130 1/2 Fulton Street in Brooklyn, where he continued his lucrative portrait business and branched out into stage scenery decoration. About this time he married Almira Stewart at Brooklyn's Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims. He reportedly visited Cuba the following year to produce scenes for a commission, and from 1849 through the early 1850s he exhibited genre paintings at the American-Art Union and participated in shows at the Brooklyn Art Association, the National Academy of Design, and the prestigious Goupil Gallery.

Source: AlonzoChappel.org