[4] Ferris enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1879 and trained further at the Académie Julian beginning in 1883 under William-Adolphe Bouguereau.

[2] He also met his namesake Jean-Léon Gérôme, who greatly influenced his decision to paint scenes from American history.

[citation needed] In 1898, he sold General Howe's Levee, 1777, but he later realized that such a series could not be complete if the separate paintings could not be kept together.

This had the effect of greatly popularizing his work, as these companies made prints, postcards, calendars, and blank-backed trade cards to use in advertisements.

The American Philosophical Society claims that his historical paintings confuse "verity with verisimilitude",[7] and art historian Gerald Ackerman describes them as "splendid in the accuracy of accessories, clothing and especially in the details of land conveyances and ships", but "extremely dry in execution and rather monotonous in composition.