John James Masquerier

[2] As a child he was taken to Paris by his mother, who had set up a school in the Champs-Elysées[2] He studied painting under François Vincent at the Tuileries, and was there at the time of the murder of the Swiss Guards on 10 August 1792, but escaped with his life.

In 1795 he began his professional career as an artist, and in 1796 exhibited for the first time at the Royal Academy, showing a portrait and The Incredulity of St. Thomas; the latter forming the altar-piece of the chapel (once the hall of the house of Lord Chief Justice George Jeffreys) in Duke Street, Westminster.

He certainly returned to England with sketches and notes, and with the help of Charles Turner and Henry Bernard Chalon very hurriedly painted in his London studio a picture of Napoleon reviewing the Consular Guards in the Court of the Tuileries, which he exhibited in Piccadilly in 1801.

[3] The writer "Peter Porcupine" (an alias of William Cobbett, then a fierce critic of the French Revolution) accused him of being an alien spy and emissary of Napoleon.

[3] The early part of his career as a portraitist was much helped by the patronage of a Mr. Alexander, Chairman of Ways and Means in the House of Commons, and Major Scott Waring, a zealous supporter of Warren Hastings at his trial.

He continued to paint occasionally; in 1831 he exhibited A Marriage in the Church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois, Paris, and in 1838 Buonaparte and Marie Louise viewing the Tomb of Charles the Bold at Bruges.

[3] His obituarist in the Gentleman's Magazine felt that, despite his professional success, which had been greatly aided by his charm and sociable nature, "his afterlife as an artist did not fulfil the promise of his youth."

In 1812 he married Rachel, widow of Dr. Robert Eden Scott, professor of moral philosophy at Aberdeen, daughter of Duncan Forbes, of Thainstone; she died in 1850, leaving no children.