Joseph Clover (artist)

He was born in Aylsham, in the English county of Norfolk, one of the twelve children of Thomas and Ann Clover, who owned a drapery business in the town.

In 1809, he was selected to portray three of the mayors of Norwich, the decision based in part on his works exhibited at the Royal Academy that year.

Although known during his life as a portrait painter, Clover also produced accomplished landscape paintings for his own pleasure.

He took up veterinary work in 1765 and was included in Benjamin Gooch's volumes of surgical cases for his treatment of ruptured tendons.

[4] Thomas Clover set up a drapery business in Aylsham, with a shop on the corner of the town's market square and Hungate Street.

[11] He lived at 85, Newman Street,[12] where, for a short period, he shared lodgings with another Norfolk artist, James Stark.

He recovered enough to walk again, and to attend church, but after his death in 1853 it was observed by the Swedenborgian Society that "for some time back his sphere of usefulness had been decreased".

[18] The New Church obituary noted that "from his modest and gentlemanly deportment, and his tender consideration for the feelings of others, he was always greatly beloved and respected".

[15] In 1806, he was introduced to the dramatist Richard Cumberland, who invited him to his house at Ramsgate and commissioned him to paint a portrait.

[20] The greater the social status of the sitter, the more important the artist chosen to make the portrait — hence, in 1809, Clover, as a young portraitist still being trained, was selected to paint the civic portrait of the relatively unimportant Norwich banker Thomas Back.

[20] Although known during his life as a portrait painter, Clover also produced landscape pictures, described by the art historian Josephine Walpole as being "of variable quality".

[16] In June 1810, it was announced that Clover would paint the posthumous portrait of Thomas Back, a decision that was based on his family name being well known in the county, and on the high quality of his exhibited works at the Royal Academy that year.

[15] Clover gained a "limited national reputation" as a result of his exhibited works at the Royal Academy[27] and was praised in the local press.

Mr. Clint, Mr. Clover, and Mr. Davis, each in the peculiarity of their respective styles, display proofs of felicity to nature, which we have contemplated with appreciation and with pleasure.

[28] Moore differs in his view of Clover's 1819 portrait of the physician Edward Rigby in the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, which in his opinion "represents some of the worst aspects of provincial early 19th century".