Earl, Ralph (1751-1801)

US historical and portrait painter. He was one of the self-taught and itinerant artists of the colonial and early republican periods. His battle scenes of Lexington, engraved by Amos Doolittle, are said to have been the first historical pictures by an American.

He went to London after the War of Independence, studied with Benjamin West, and painted a number of portraits, returning to America 1786. He made portraits of many distinguished Americans and his works include a painting of Niagara Falls.