Biography

English painter and draftsman. He was a student of Jonathan Richardson the Elder (1665-1745). In 1740, he went to Italy and published an illustrated description of the excavations at Herculaneum. He became Keeper of paintings for the King's Pictures in 1765. With Arthur Pond, he made a series of engravings of the most famous paintings. The most notable of these are his landscapes after Guercino.

Knapton is noted for his paintings and portraits in pastel. Knapton was a founder-member of the Roman Club in 1723, a society of literary men and artists with aspirations to connoisseurship.