James Hope (1818-1892) American, Oil on Canvas. Rural scene with maple trees and cows grazing. Overall Size: 26 1/2 x 40 1/2 in. Sight Size: 17 1/2 x 31 1/2 in. #1369 . James Hope (1818 - 1892) was active/lived in Vermont, New York. James Hope is known for Landscape, portrait, and battle scene painting. James Hope was born on November 29, 1818/19 in Drygrange, Roxboroughshire, Scotland. After moving to the United States he became a noted portrait, landscape, and historical genre painter. After the death of his mother, he was brought to Canada by his father, who died of cholera about 1831. According to tradition James Hope was fifteen when he walked from the Canadian farm where he had spent his boyhood to Fairhaven, Vermont, to begin his five-year apprenticeship to a wagon-maker. With the money he saved, he was able to spend a year at Castleton Seminary. Apparently an accident to his ankle, which temporarily confined him to his home, gave him the leisure to try his hand at portraiture, and his first efforts were successful enough for him to set up as a professional artist at West Rutland in 1843. From 1844 to 1846, he painted portraits in the more lucrative market of Montreal and then returned to Castleton, where he built a house in 1851 and supported his family by teaching painting and drawing at the Seminary. Landscape painting soon began to occupy all his spar. The catalogue of his paintings sold some years after his death mentions that at this period 'two famous landscape artists- one great through color-power, the other through majesty of line, came into his life with most grateful results to him and them.'