Isaac Jehner

Isaac Jehner (2 December 1750 – 1818) was a painter and engraver who worked in the West Country and London. He changed his name to Jenner in 1806.

Biography Jehner was born, the last of eighteen children, in Queen's Head Court, Great Windmill Street, Westminster, London to Johan Jehner, a German-born gunsmith silver planisher. Jehner later wrote of his childhood claiming that he was taught to read eating gingerbread letters. His father mixed with a group of artists and the young Jehner got himself apprenticed to an elderly draughtsman. His master retired and set Jehner up with basic equipment. Despite his disability he obtained work with the mezzotint engraver William Pether. Jehner realised that there was a large but competitive business for prints and if he was to gain more business he decided to learn how to paint in oils.

In May 1780 Jehner moved to Exeter with his wife and his baby son who was also called Isaac. They stayed there briefly before moving to Plymouth. He started another drawing school and picked up business from the Freemasons after he joined the local lodge. Jehner painted an altarpiece in Saltash which set him up for further work at the important Bristol church of St Mary, Redcliffe. Jehner and his three sons were in Bristol from 1785 to 1880. Whilst there he set up a shop in Bath but he received a more regular income by working for the Polygraphic Society in Woolwich. A fire ended the enterprise in 1793. Whilst at Woolwich, Jehner created silk paintings using a novel technique that made the pieces look like stained glass. Jehner died in 1818 leaving many engravings of his own work as well as many based on paintings by other notable artists like Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Hogarth, William Parry and Antonio da Correggio.