Details
Title Weaver, M. S. (Matthias Shirk)
Date November 25, 1816 - October 20, 1847
Description Matthias Shirk Weaver, born on November 25, 1816 probably in New Holland, Pennsylvania, studied and worked as an artist and lithographer in Philadelphia 1838-1845. He made yearly trips back to visit family in Ohio and on September 15, 1842 during an Ohio visit married Eliza Burgert. Together they had one son, Henry Matthias, who lived to adulthood. Matthias Weaver died of consumption in Summit County, Ohio on October 20, 1847.
Weaver came to Philadelphia to study art at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1838. To support himself, he worked as a lithographic artist, predominately with printer Thomas Sinclair, drawing large Philadelphia business advertisements, portraits, membership certificates, book illustrations, sheet music covers, and maps. Some of Weaver's most noted work comprised plates for texts authored by the Philadelphia's scientific and medical community, including Dr. Samuel George Morton's Crania Americana (1839) and Crania Aegyptiaca (1844).
Weaver had an active social life while living in Philadelphia, playing in a musical society, joining the William Wirt Library and Literary Institute, and attending lectures and theater performances. Weaver recorded thoughts about his work and his personal life, including socializing with Philadelphia lithographer William Rease, in diaries he kept between 1840 and 1843, now in the possession of the Ohio Historical Society. In failing health and frustrated with lithography as a profession, Weaver, along with his young family, returned to Ohio in 1845. He died a month before his thirty-first birthday on October 20, 1847.
Is part of Philadelphia on Stone Biographical Dictionary of Lithographers
References See Rease, William and Sinclair, Thomas.
Call number Philadelphia on Stone Biographical Dictionary of Lithographers
Bibliographic citation Hageman, 123
Haverstock, Vance & Meggitt, 915
Matthias Weaver Diaries, Ohio Historical Society
Matthias Weaver Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania
Wainwright, 81-82
Weatherwax, "Matthias Weaver: The Reluctant Lithographer." Paper presented at the North American Print Conference, Philadelphia Impressions, September 26-28, 2007