He is described as “one of the most distinctive figures of eighteenth century Oxford”,[1]: 5 and is recognised as having been an influence on later landscape artists, including John Constable.
[2] John Malchair was baptised as Johannes Baptist Malscher on 15 January 1730, in St Peter's Church, Cologne.
After initially working in London as a violinist and drawing master, he moved to Lewes, where he met and came under the patronage of the artist Robert Price.
He continued collecting and composing music, which was notated by his friend William Crotch, the organist at Christ Church.
[3] Some of Malchair's own original violin and piano compositions survive in Crotch's manuscripts, and owe much to the folk tradition.
His work features many of the mediaeval Oxford buildings which were destroyed following the passing of the 1771 'Mileways Act', and these paintings often provide a unique record of this architecture.