John James Chalon
1778 - 1854
John James Chalon was a Swiss painter active in England. He treated a wide range of subjects - landscapes, marine scenes, animal life, and figure-pieces.
He was born at Geneva, of an old French family who had taken refuge there after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. He went to England when quite young, and entered the Schools of the Academy in 1796. His first picture, 'Banditti at their Repast,' appeared in 1800. In 1808, he, his brother Alfred Edward Chalon, and some friends, founded the Sketching Society, and in the same year he joined the Water-Colour Society, but in 1813 he seceded from it, and again devoted himself to painting pictures in oil for the Royal Academy. He was elected an Associate of that institution in 1827, and an Academician in 1841.
In 1847 he was seized by an attack of paralysis, and, after a long and painful illness, died at Kensington in 1854. He is buried in a family vault (plot no.6179) on the western side of Highgate Cemetery.
Text courtesy of Wikipedia, 2023