John Brooks (engraver)

Active initially in Dublin, around 1747 he settled in London, managing a business at Battersea for the enamelling of china in colours by a process which he had devised.

The articles produced were ornamented with subjects chiefly from Homer and Ovid.

After a period of success the business folded on the bankruptcy of its chief proprietor, Stephen Theodore Janssen, Lord Mayor of London for 1754-5.

Some of his pupils of Brooks worked as engravers in mezzotint, among them Michael Ford and James MacArdell.

The earliest engraved portrait of Peg Woffington is that by Brooks, dated June 1740.