Beginning in 1866, John Appleton Brown studied at the Louvre in Paris with Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and Charles Fraçois Daubigny.  He was highly influenced by them and painted in a Barbizon style. 

In 1868, he returned to Boston and married a painter named Agnes Bartlett.  In 1874, the couple returned to France where they painted at Ville d’ary, Corot’s home.

When the couple returned to Maine they were known for scenes of Spring, often with pictures of blossoming apple orchards.  John was known by the nickname “Apple Blossom Brown.”

He spent summers at the home of Celia Thaxter  on Appledore, an islet among the Isles of Shoals off New Hampshire and Maine.  Thaxter was a poet and essayist who hosted painters and writers for the summer.  John Appleton Brown spent time there with other New England painters of his era including America’s famed impressionist, Childe Hassam.

His work is exhibited in the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, Maine, the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum in Boston, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Telfair Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia, the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, New Hampshire, the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts in Hagerstown, Maryland, and the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut.

John Appleton Brown died in 1902 at the age of 58.