John Baptist Jackson
Innovative chiaroscuro woodcuts with oil inks
John Baptist Jackson was a British artist, a woodcut printmaker of the eighteenth century. He lived and worked in Paris and Venice. Jackson was prolific, ambitious and innovative within the medium, and produced both chiaroscuro and polychrome prints, as well as wallpaper. Jackson made prints after oil paintings rather than in imitation of ink-and-wash drawings. Jackson's work was remarkable for its subtle overprinting to incorporate a wider range of colours, for which he developed new, oil-based inks. Also notable in some works is his use of heavy embossing to emphasize and highlight areas of his compositions, for which he used a rolling press of his own construction. This use of embossing may have been influenced by British contemporaries Elisha Kirkall (1681/2–1742) and Arthur Pond (1701–58). Details of Jackson's life are few and far between. He arrived in Paris in 1725, and had interactions with French printmakers Vincent Le Sueur and Jean M. Papillon, and collector Pierre Crozat, as detailed in the 'Enquiry'. He left for Rome in 1730, then for Venice. He returned to England in 1745, and embarked on a venture to create wallpapers.
Relationship Network
Master student
- Rev. William Henry Barnard Master
Influenced by
Influenced
Parent child
- Pierre Tetar van Elven Child
- Sir John Tenniel Child
Artworks by this artist (30 total)
- The Marriage of Cana (right sheet) (after Paola Veronese) 1740
- Lazarus and the rich man 1740
- Holy Family and Four Saints (after Paola Veronese) 1745
- Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple (right plate) 1742
- Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple (center plate) 1742
- Melchizedek blessing Abraham 1743
- The Rich Man and Lazarus (after Jacopo Bassano) 1743
- Dancing Nymph with Bow and Arrows 1752-1754
- Crucifixion 1741
- The Entombment (after Jacopo Bassano) 1739
- Crucifixion 1741
- Descent from the Cross (after Rembrandt van Rijn) 1738
- The Marriage of Cana (left sheet) (after Paola Veronese) 1740
- Holy Family and Four Saints 1739
- Entombment of Christ 1739[-]43
- Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple (left plate) 1742
- Statuette de Neptune 1738
- The Entombment 1739
- The Resurrection of Lazarus 1742
- Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple 1742