Biography

English painter. His father was possibly the Charles Brooking who was employed as a painter and decorator at Greenwich Hospital, London, between 1729 and 1736. From the period before 1750 there are two small marine paintings inscribed 'C. Brooking aged 17 years' (private collection), and it is recorded that he worked for a picture dealer in Leicester Square, London. In 1752 he worked as a botanical draughtsman for John Ellis (?1710-76), providing the illustrations for the latter's Natural History of the Corallines (London, 1755), in which he was referred to in the introduction as 'a celebrated painter of sea-pieces'.

His reputation as a marine artist was well established by 1755: four of his paintings portraying the recent exploits of a squadron of ships, the 'Royal Family' privateers, were engraved and published in 1753, and in 1754 he completed a commission from the Foundling Hospital (London) for the large sea-piece Flagship before the Wind under Easy Sail (London, Foundling Hospital), possibly intended as a pendant to an earlier work by Peter Monamy. In June 1754 he was elected as one of the hospital's governors and guardians.

Brooking was the finest British marine painter of his day, equally adept at calm or rough sea. He had an intimate knowledge of the ships he painted.