James Sharples was born in Lancashire, England, and may have studied with George Romney. By 1774 he was living in Liverpool, where he exhibited a portrait and two miniatures at the first exhibition of the Liverpool Society of Artists. He showed portraits at the Royal Academy between 1779 to 1785, and in 1781 advertised as a ‘Portrait Painter in Oil and Crayons’ in the Bristol Advertizer (28 July 1781). By 1785 he had moved to London. After his second wife's death, Sharples returned to Liverpool, where about 1787 he married Ellen Wallace (1769–1849), who had been his student. Their children, James junior (c.1788–1839) and Rolinda (1793-1838) became artists, as did the two children of his earlier marriages, George and Felix Thomas. In 1793 the Sharples family traveled to the United States, arriving in New York, and then settling in Philadelphia, where Sharples executed numerous small portraits, mostly in pastels. Sharples carried letters of introduction to prominent figures, with a request to paint their portraits for his collection. Once he completed his portraits, the sitters generally ordered copies, with his price for the profile $15; and for “full-face” $20. The outlines of the bust-length portraits were apparently drawn with a “physiognotrace” to ensure accuracy. Following a stay in New York from October 1797 to 1801, the Sharples family returned to England. James Jr. and Felix Sharples returned to America in 1806, and James, Ellen and Rolinda Sharples returned to New York in 1809, where James Sharples died in 1811.