John James Masquerier

John James Masquerier (5 October 1778 – 13 March 1855) was a British painter of French Huguenot descent. His work was mainly portrait painting, including of notables such as Lady Hamilton.

Life He was born at Chelsea, London in October 1778. Both his parents were from French refugee Protestant families, his mother's maiden name being Barbot.

Masquerier painted more than 400 portraits in the first 28 years of his professional career. He also showed a few subject pictures at the Royal Academy, such as The Fortune Teller (1800), Petrarch and Laura (1803), and January and May (1808). In 1814 he fetched his mother from Paris, and provided for her maintenance in England. It was probably on this journey that he painted a portrait of Emma, Lady Hamilton. The next year he visited the field of Waterloo and made a painting of La Belle Alliance. He also drew a portrait of Napoleon's guide, J.B. Coster. At a rather later period he enjoyed the friendship of Sir Francis Burdett, and of his youngest daughter Angela, later Baroness Burdett Coutts.

In 1823 Masquerier retired from his profession, having amassed a comfortable fortune, and settled at Brighton, where he spent the rest of his life. He revisited Paris in 1850, and in 1851 toured Germany with Henry Crabb Robinson. He continued to paint occasionally; in 1831 he exhibited A Marriage in the Church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois, Paris, and in 1838 Buonaparte and Marie Louise viewing the Tomb of Charles the Bold at Bruges. He died at Brighton on 13 March 1855. His remaining pictures, sketchbooks, etc. were inherited by his relative, D. E. Forbes, and were sold by Christie's on 19 January 1878. A number of his sketchbooks were in the possession of his friend, Baroness Burdett Coutts.

His obituarist in the Gentleman's Magazine felt that, despite his professional success, which had been greatly aided by his charm and sociable nature, "his afterlife as an artist did not fulfil the promise of his youth."

Family In 1812 he married Rachel, widow of Dr. Robert Eden Scott, professor of moral philosophy at Aberdeen, daughter of Duncan Forbes, of Thainstone; she died in 1850, leaving no children.