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.]