JOHN DOWNMAN (1750 – 1824) was a minor but prolific painter, primarily of portraits, carried out in pastels or watercolours, or a combination of these. His portrait style, rapid, bright and light, is instantly recognisable and became very popular with the aristocracy.
Downman studied with Benjamin West after moving to London from Lancashire in 1767, and went to Italy with Wright of Derby and others in 1773/74, returning in 1775. He initially settled in Cambridge, where he was supported by the Mortlock family, local bankers, painting a series of portraits of the family. He was in London from 1778 to 1804 before moving to West Malling (which he refers to as “Town Malling”), where his brother, Lieut-Col Francis Downman was already living at Brome House.
At Went House he enjoyed time in the garden, producing sketches of toads and robins which he had apparently tamed, and painting local personalities, including members of the Douce family into which his niece, Jane, had married; and the Larking family of Clare House, East Malling. After two years in West Malling he moved to live in the West Country, then London, Chester and Wrexham where his only daughter married and where he died.
A list of his portraits reads like a Who’s Who of the period including: Queen Charlotte; Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire; Sarah Siddons; Horatio Nelson; Frederick The Great of Prussia; Richard Brinsley Sheridan; ‘Monk’ Lewis and so on.
Further reading:
*John Downman ARA by Dr Williamson (1907)
*Dictionary of pastellists before 1800 by Neil Jeffares (updated 2010)
More information
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