DOWNMAN, John

English painter and draughtsman. He became a pupil of Benjamin West in 1768 and entered the Royal Academy Schools, London, the following year. In 1770 and 1772 he exhibited portraits at the Royal Academy and showed his first subject picture in 1773. He left for a period of study in Italy and was in Rome with Joseph Wright of Derby from 1773 to 1774. When he next exhibited at the Royal Academy (1777) he was living in Cambridge, but from 1778 to 1804 his considerable annual contribution to the Academy exhibitions was sent from various London addresses.

His very popular small portraits were often shown in groups of six or nine. His occasional subject pictures were based on themes from mythology, classical history, poetry and the theatre. They included a scene from As You Like It (untraced) painted for John Boydell’s Shakespeare Gallery. Downman became ARA (Associate of the Royal Academy) in 1795 and travelled widely in later life, marrying in Exeter in 1806 and sending works to the Royal Academy (1805-12 and 1816-19) from all over the country.

Although his work as a small-scale portraitist is widely known, his subject pieces are today rare, despite exhibiting more than two dozen at the Academy. They have, in all probability, suffered the same fate of many unsigned 18th century oil paintings, being erroneously attributed to other artists.