George Jones (painter)

George Jones RA (6 January 1786 – 19 September 1869) was a British painter, and Keeper of the Royal Academy, most famous for his paintings of military subjects.

He became a student at the Royal Academy Schools in 1801 at the early age of 15, exhibiting his first work depicting a biblical scene in 1803.

[2] His obituary [3] states that he volunteered for active service with his company in Spain, but he was certainly part of the army of occupation in Paris after the Battle of Waterloo.

[4] Jones bore a strong resemblance to his hero, Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, and was sometimes mistaken for him.

Waterloo was particularly attractive to the artist and he exhibited no less than five paintings of the battle at the Royal Academy and six at the British Institution, earning the nickname 'Waterloo' Jones.

His presence in the latter stages of the campaign clearly helped him and he made numerous sketches of the battlefield and surroundings; some of these were used in a book entitled The Battle of Waterloo...By a Near Observer published in 1817.

The subject of the war in the Crimea appealed to Jones who exhibited two preliminary oil sketches at the Royal Academy in 1855 entitled The battle of the Alma and Balaclava 1854 - conflict at the guns.