{{short description|English painter}} {{Use dmy dates|date=November 2019}} {{Infobox person | name = James Jefferys | image = James Jefferys by James Jefferys.jpg | caption = self-portrait | birth_name = | birth_date = 19 May 1751 | birth_place = Maidstone, England | death_date = 31 January 1784 | death_place = Soho, London, England | death_cause = | other_names = | known_for = | education = | employer = | occupation = | title = | height = | term = | predecessor = | successor = | party = | boards = | spouse = | partner = | children = | parents = | relatives = | signature = | website = | footnotes = }}
'''James Jefferys''' (19 May 1751 – 31 January 1784) was a British engraver and painter. His work was reassessed in the 1970s following the discovery of a lost set of drawings in Maidstone.
==Life== Jefferys was born in Maidstone in 1751 to William and Parnell Jefferys; his father was a coach painter and artist.<ref>{{Art UK bio|wikidata=Q21465686|name=Willam Jefferys}}</ref> He spent time working under William Woollett who was also born in Maidstone. Jefferys enrolled at the Royal Academy and his talent was marked with a gold medal for a drawing titled ''Seleucus and Stratonice'' in 1773. That year he started exhibiting at the Society of Artists and the following year he gained a prize from the Society.<ref name=pressly/> The Dilettante Society underwrote the expense of three years in Rome after a recommendation by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Jefferys stretched this to four years and returned with a number of well regarded classical drawings of violent subjects, but no paintings are known.<ref name=odnb/> Jefferys was known to have had a wild time<ref name=burl/> and some reported his behaviour as odd.<ref name=pressly/> Jefferys' drawings were in the style of James Barry and John Hamilton Mortimer (Jefferys may have worked with Mortimer whilst he was at the Royal Academy).<ref name=odnb/> left|thumb|''The Scene Before Gibraltar'' by James Jefferys 1783
When he returned to England he established his own studio at Meard's Court in Soho. His most important work was ''The Scene before Gibraltar on the morning of 14 Sept. 1782'' which he exhibited at the ''Royal Academy'' in 1783. The subject of the painting took place during the Great Siege of Gibraltar when the Spanish built purpose built ships that were floating batteries designed to be unsinkable. Jefferys' past master, William Woolett, undertook an engraving of the painting but John Emes had to complete the task after Woolett died.<ref name=odnb/>
Jefferys died in Soho, London, unmarried, from a cold at the end of January 1784.<ref name=burl>Timothy Clifford and Susan Legouix, [https://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/878307?uid=2&uid=4&sid=21102640349837 "James Jefferys Historical Draughtsman (1751-84)"], ''The Burlington Magazine'', Vol. 118, No. 876 (March 1976), pp. 148–155+157, retrieved September 2013.</ref>
==Legacy== Jefferys' Gibraltar painting was exhibited at the European Museum in 1804. Many drawings by Jefferys were erroneously attributed to James Barry and John Hamilton Mortimer until they were reassigned in the 1970s. This came about following the discovery of a collection of his drawings in Maidstone.<ref name=pressly>{{cite book|last=Pressly|first=William L|chapter=James Jefferys' Appropriation of Shakespeare's Mantle|title=The Artist as Original Genius|publisher=University of Delaware Press|location=Newark|year=2007|isbn=978-0874139853|page=112|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Jja48TD6IdkC&pg=PA112 }}</ref> Jefferys has work in the National Portrait Gallery<ref>James Jefferys, [http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portraitLarge/mw03444/James-Jefferys Self-portrait c. 1774–75], National Portrait Gallery, retrieved September 2013</ref> and the Victoria and Albert Museum, and his painting of the battle at Gibraltar is at Maidstone Museum & Art Gallery.<ref>{{Art UK bio}}</ref> His work is regarded as important but derivative.<ref name=odnb>Martin Myrone, [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/14695 "Jefferys, James (1751–1784)"], ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, accessed 15 September 2013.</ref>
==References== {{commons category}} {{reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Jefferys, James}} Category:1751 births Category:1784 deaths Category:People from Maidstone Category:18th-century English painters Category:English male painters Category:18th-century British engravers Category:18th-century English male artists