John Cleveley the Elder (c.1712 – 21 May 1777) was an English marine artist.

Life

Cleveley was born in

Southwark Southwark ( ) is a district of Central London situated on the south bank of the River Thames, forming the north-western part of the wider modern London Borough of Southwark. The district, which is the oldest part of South London, developed ...

. He was not from an artistic background, and his father intended him to follow the family trade of joinery, so he set up as a carpenter or shipwright in around 1742 at the

Deptford Dockyard Deptford Dockyard was an important naval dockyard and base at Deptford on the River Thames, operated by the Royal Navy from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. It built and maintained warships for 350 years, and many significant events ...

. Continuing his work in that area throughout his life (indeed, he is referred to as ‘carpenter belonging to His Majesty’s Ship ''

Victory The term victory (from Latin ''victoria'') originally applied to warfare, and denotes success achieved in personal combat, after military operations in general or, by extension, in any competition. Success in a military campaign constitutes ...

'', in the pay of His M

jest A joke is a display of humour in which words are used within a specific and well-defined narrative structure to make people laugh and is usually not meant to be interpreted literally. It usually takes the form of a story, often with dialogue, ...

s Navy’ in letters of administration granted by the Admiralty in 1778 to his widow, probably when she was first fitting out), from about 1745 he also worked as a painter, mostly ship portraits, dockyard scenes of shipbuilding and launches, and some other marine views. They combined his knowledge of shipbuilding with accurate architectural and topographical detail. Apparently mostly self-taught, it is possible that dockyard ship-painters also gave him some training in this area. He toured

East Anglia East Anglia is an area in the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, a people whose name originated in Anglia, in ...

, and produced some paintings from notes made on that trip.

Works

*''Sixth-Rate on the Stocks'', now in the

National Maritime Museum The National Maritime Museum (NMM) is a maritime museum in Greenwich, London. It is part of Royal Museums Greenwich, a network of museums in the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site. Like other publicly funded national museums in the Unite ...

, London.
Biography
(National Maritime Museum, London) *''The Royal Yacht Caroline'' (National Maritime Museum, London). *'' off Deptford at the launch of , 1755'', (though the former ship was only launched a year later, and would have been of too deep a draught to appear where it does) (National Maritime Museum, London). *The theme for a series of six paintings, displayed in the parlour of one of the survivors of the ''

Luxborough Galley The ''Luxborough Galley'' was an English ship owned by the South Sea Company which in 1727 burnt, exploded and sank in the Atlantic Ocean. Twelve of the crew survived due to practicing cannibalism aboard the lifeboat. Last voyage The vessel, ...

'', was repeated in ''The Loss of the 'Luxborough' Galley in 1727 and the Escape of Some of her Crew'' (Greenwich Hospital coll., National Maritime Museum, London).

Children

* John Cleveley the Younger (1747–1786) and Robert Cleveley (1747–1809), twins, both artists *James Cleveley, ship's carpenter on during

Cook Cook or The Cook may refer to: Food preparation * Cooking, the preparation of food * Cook (domestic worker), a household staff member who prepares food * Cook (professional), an individual who prepares food for consumption in the food industry * ...

’s last Pacific voyage, 1776–1780.

References

External links

"The Cleveley Family", at ''Portcities''The Mariners' Museum
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cleveley, John 1712 births 1777 deaths 18th-century English painters English male painters British marine artists People from Southwark 18th-century English male artists