James Peller Malcolm

James Peller Malcolm was an American-English topographer and engraver.

Son of a merchant in Philadelphia, he was born there in August 1767. He was admitted to the Quaker school; but his family left to avoid the fighting in American Revolutionary War, and his education was mostly at Pottstown, Pennsylvania. He returned with his family to Philadelphia in 1784, after the conclusion of peace. Acting on the advice of Mr. Bembridge, a relative and fellow-student of Benjamin West, he went to London, and pursued artistic studies for two years in the Royal Academy. Finding that history painting and landscape painting were not much in demand, he took to engraving and the compilation of books on topographical and historical subjects. He was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.

He died in Gee Street, Clarendon Square, London, on 5 April 1815, leaving his mother and wife unprovided for.

Text courtesy of Wikipedia, 2023