PAINTING PALACE
Source Supplier of Oil Paintings

Like many other marine painters, not least Pocock and Smyth, Buttersworth was a seaman who recorded his experiences in paint and charcoal. Several of the 27 watercolours by him in the National Maritime Museum, London, are mounted on sheets from 18th-century printed signal and muster books. In 1795 he is documented as enlisting on board HM receiving ship Enterprise in London. He served on the Caroline during the French wars and was invalided home from Minorca in 1800. Paintings such as the ‘Inshore Squadron off Cadiz in 1797’ (National Maritime Museum, London) probably reflect events he witnessed. Following his return to London, he was appointed Marine Painter to the East India Company and added commissioned ship portraits to his already prolific output of naval battle scenes. Despite his relative success, Buttersworth exhibited few paintings during his lifetime. It was long thought that he had died in 1830 but has recently been confirmed that he was still alive in 1842, painting Queen Victoria’s visit to Edinburgh in that year.

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