John Downman

[1] Earlier works assumed Downman was born in 1750 near Ruabon in Denbighshire where he first went to school; however it is now known he was baptised on 12 September 1749 at Eynesbury in Huntingdonshire,[2] adjacent to St Neots.

[5] In 1806, Downman visited Plymouth in the West Country, between 1807 and 1808 he practised at Exeter, afterwards working in London for some years, settling at Chester in 1818-19, then finally moving to Wrexham, where his only daughter married and where he died on 24 December 1824.

He exhibited 148 works in the Royal Academy between 1769 and 1819, mainly portraits, but often fancy subjects, such as 'Rosalind,' painted for the Shakespeare Gallery; 'The Death of Lucretia; The Priestess of Bacchus;' 'Tobias;' 'Fair Rosamond;' 'The Return of Orestes;' 'Duke Robert,' etc.

His first work at the Royal Academy (1769) was A small portrait in oil,' and the last (1819), A late Princess personifying Peace crowning the glory of England reflected on Europe, 1815.

He also left several volumes of exquisite drawings, executed in red and black chalk, of which Ralph Neville Grenville published a catalogue (Taunton, 1865).