WEIR, ROBERT WALTER (1803-1889), American por trait and historical painter, was born at New Rochelle, New York, on the 18th of June 1803. He was a pupil of Jarvis, was elected to the National Academy of Design in 1829, and was teacher of drawing at the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1834-1846, and professor of drawing there in 1846-1876. He died in New York City on the 1st of May 1889. Among his better-known works are : "The Embarkation of the Pilgrims" (in the rotunda of the United States Capitol at Washington, D.C.) ; "Landing of Hendrik Hudson"; "Evening of the Crucifixion"; "Columbus before the Council of Salamanca"; "Our Lord on the Mount of Olives"; "Virgil and Dante crossing the Styx," and several portraits, now at West Point, and "Peace and War" in the Chapel there.
His son, JOHN FERGUSON WEIR (1841-1926), painter and sculp tor, became a Member of the National Academy of Design in 1866, and was made director of the Yale University Art School in 1868. Another son, JULIAN ALDEN WEIR (1852-1919), studied under his father, and under J. L. Gerome, and became a distin guished portrait, figure and landscape painter.