John Cawse (25 December 1778 – 19 January 1862) was a British painter and caricaturist.
He was born on 25 December 1778, the son of Charles Woodruffe Cawse and his wife Mary, of Little Prescott Street, Whitechapel.[1] His father described himself in his will as a "Staymaker and Dealer in Whale Fins".[2]
Early in his career he was employed to draw caricatures by the print publisher SW Fores.[1] He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1802, showing mostly portraits, but also some paintings of horses and, from the early 1830s, a few historical pictures.[3] Between 1807 and 1845 he exhibited at the British Institution, predominantly showing literary and historical subjects, including scenes from the works of Shakespeare and Walter Scott.[4] His portrait of the clown Joseph Grimaldi is in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery[5] and his 1826 painting of Carl Maria von Weber is in that of the Royal College of Music.[6]
He is best remembered for his book The Art of Painting Portraits, Landscapes, Animals, Draperies, &c., in oil colours, published in 1840. He was an amateur musician who, unusually for the time, played the antiquated viola da gamba (i.e. the bass viol);[7] an instrument he once owned is in the Victoria and Albert Museum.[8]
He married Mary Fraser; two of their daughters, Mary and Harriet Cawse, became opera singers; another, Clarissa Sabina, was a miniature painter[1]