John Haslem

John Haslem (1808–1884), was an English china and enamel painter, and writer. He painted many portrait miniatures of Queen Victoria, the Royal Family and other nobility.

Life and work

Haslem was born in 1808 at Carrington in Cheshire (now part of Greater Manchester). He left home as a young boy to live in Derby with his uncle James Thomason, who went on to manage the Derby China factory. He studied under local ceramic artist, George Hancock, and first devoted himself to flower-painting, but subsequently took to figure-painting, in which he was very successful.

Haslem was also in demand, by jewellers and art dealers, and on one occasion was employed to paint a set of enamels in imitation of Petitot, which were so successful that they appeared in the miniature exhibitions at the South Kensington Museum, in 1862 and 1865, as the work of Petitot himself.