James Sillett

Essay:

James Sillett was a prolific producer of paintings with nearly 350 recorded works, although a considerable number have since been lost. His oeuvre was varied and included fruit, flowers, game, miniatures and landscapes. The early part of his professional career was taken up with ornamental and heraldic work and he also painted scenery for both Covent Garden and Drury Lane theatres.

Born and bred in Norwich and a senior contemporary of John Crome, Sillett was a member of the Norwich School of painters and served as its president in 1815. In his younger years he appears to have moved around and was perhaps a student at the Royal Academy in the late 1780s, which perhaps accounts for his great versatility as an artist.

Sillett exhibited at the Royal Academy for forty years from 1796 to 1837 showing works with titles such as "An Auricula", "Snake, Thistle and Insects", "Chickens alarmed by a Hawk" and "The red Grouse or Moorcock" in addition to an abundance of still lifes of fruit and flowers which take much influence from Jan van Os.

In 1810 he returned to Norwich where he remained for the rest of his life. It was while he was in his native county that he started to produce landscapes, spurning the look of the local school and working more in the style of George Barrett and Joseph Farrington. The result were highly attractive and accomplished paintings, although he never exhibited this subject matter outside Norfolk.

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While flower pictures appear to make up the bulk of Sillet's known oeuvre, after moved to King's Lynn around 1800 paintings of fish occasionally appeared in his Royal Academy submissions such as 'Leash of Tench' in 1807, 'Fish' in 1818, and 'Fish, from Nature' in 1819.

The present picture is dated 1808 and would have been painted when Sillet was living with his family in King's Lynn. It could perhaps have been exhibited at the 1808/9 Norwich Society of Artists exhibition of which Sillet was a member from 1806.

Provenance:

Private Collection, UK