He was the patriarch of the colourful London Riviere family of artists and singers.
He was born in London in 1780 the son of Samuel Newton Riviere and his wife Ann Garford.
Riviere was a drawing master in at least one school and also worked making miniature portraits (a fashion of the time), and also appears to have maintained an income from teaching art and singing.
His daughter Fanny Riviere (also an artist) married the eminent sculptor Charles Harriott Smith.
[3] His daughter Anna (1810-1884) was a noted opera singer who married Henry Rowley Bishop and ran off with her lover Nicolas-Charles Bochsa.