Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Roberts, James (fl.1775-1800)
ROBERTS, JAMES (fl. 1775–1800), portrait-painter, son of James Roberts, a landscape engraver, by whom there are a few plates after George Barret, Paul Sandby, Richard Wilson, and others, was born at Westminster, and resided there during the greater part of his life. He gained a premium from the Society of Arts in 1766, and, though of slender abilities, achieved some success as a painter of small whole-lengths, chiefly of actors in character. Between 1775 and 1781 he furnished most of the drawings for the portrait plates in Bell's ‘British Theatre;’ and more than sixty of these, carefully executed in watercolours on vellum, are preserved in the Burney collection of theatrical portraits in the British Museum. Roberts exhibited annually at the Royal Academy from 1773 to 1784, and again from 1795 to 1799. In the interval he resided at Oxford, where in 1790 he commenced the publication of a series of engravings of the sculptured works of the Hon. Anne Damer, from drawings by himself; but only one number, containing five plates, was issued. He painted, for the Duke of Marlborough, three of the scenes in the private theatricals organised at Blenheim in 1787, of which engravings by John Jones were published in 1788. These, like all his works, are treated in a formal, inartistic manner. In or before 1795 Roberts was appointed portrait-painter to the Duke of Clarence. In 1809 he published ‘Introductory Lessons, with Familiar Examples in Landscape, for the use of those who are desirous of gaining some knowledge of the Art of Painting in Watercolours.’ A portrait of Sir John Hawkins (1719–1789) [q. v.], painted by Roberts in 1785 for the music school at Oxford, has been engraved. His portraits of Mrs. Abington as Lady Teazle in the ‘School for Scandal,’ and Miss Pope as Mrs. Ford in the ‘Merry Wives of Windsor,’ belong to the Garrick Club.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Graves's Dict. of Artists, 1760–1893; Bryan's Dict. ed. Armstrong; Chaloner Smith's British Mezzotinto Portraits.]