Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Chatelaine, John Baptist Claude
CHATELAINE, JOHN BAPTIST CLAUDE (1710–1771), draughtsman and engraver, whose real name was Philippe, was born in London of French protestant parents in 1710. According to Dussieux in ‘Les Artistes Français à l'étranger’ (Paris, 1856, 8vo) and E. B. de la Chavignerie in ‘Dictionnaire Général des Artistes de l’École Française’ (Paris, 1882, 8vo), he was born and died in Paris. Chatelaine held a commission in the French army, but, endowed with great capacity for drawing, he took to art. He was employed by Alderman Boydell [q. v.], who paid him by the hour on account of his idle and dissolute habits. He resided near Chelsea, in a house which had formerly belon red to Oliver Cromwell, and which Chatellaine took from having dreamed that he would find in it a hidden treasure. He died at the White Bear Inn, Piccadilly, in 1771; his friends raised a subscription to defray the cost of the funeral. He exhibited as an engraver at the Free Society between 1761 and 1763, spelling his name on his plates thus-Chatellain and Chatelin. The following engravings are by him: ‘The Four Times of the Day’ (this plate was afterwards finished by Richard Houston, who engraved it in a mixed style, i.e. etching and mezzotint); two landscapes, after his own designs; eight views of the lakes in Cumberland and Westmoreland, after William Bellers (these views were engraved in conjunction with Ravenet, Grignion, Canot, and Mason); eleven views, after Marco Ricci; three landscapes after Pietro Berrettini da Cortona, Nichollis Poussin, and Francesco Grimaldi, ‘il Bolognese;’ a landscape after F. Mielly; and a ‘View of the London Hospital in Whitechaple Road. Designed by Boulton Mainwaring and painted by William Bellers, etched and engraved by Chatelaine and W. H. Toms;’ a ‘View of the River Thames from Chiswick,' and a ‘View of Fulham Bridge and Putney,’ in 1750. In 1737 J. Rocque published ‘A New Book of Landskips Pleasant and Useful for to learn to draw without a Master, by Chatelin.’ There are in the department of prints and drawings in the British Museum four drawings by him, in pen and bistre, and in black chalk.
[Redgrave’s Dictionary of Artists, 1878; Ottley's Dictionary of Recent and Living Painters and Engravers, 1866; manuscript notes in the British Museum.]