A Still Life of a Bullfinch on a Vine Branch with Bunches of Red and White Grapes and an overturned Basket of Blackberries

Oil on canvas

35 x 45.5cms
13¾ x 18ins

This artist is often distinguished from other William Joneses of the period by the addition of ‘of Bath’ to his name. He was based in London in 1764, in Derby in 1765 but settled in Bath in 1769 and it was from here that he exhibited two paintings at the Royal Academy in 1770 and 1771. Jones also exhibited at the Free Society of Artists and The Society of Artists.

He was very much in the tradition of 18th century English still life painters such as William Sartorius and the Van der Mijn family who themselves had been inspired by Jakob Bogdany and Tobias Stranover. These last two artists had forged successful careers in England having arrived from Bohemia and Transylvania respectively.

Bogdany and Stranover had tended to put exotic birds such as parrots in their still-lifes and the Dutch born van der Mijn family had tended to follow this style. The slightly later English born artists, such as Jones and Sartorius, with the new-found confidence and blossoming of the English Art School of that period, tended to favour the domestic fauna. Fruit and Finches feature prominently in Jones’s paintings and these works were very much in vogue.

Titles of exhibited works include: “A Fruit Piece”, “A Bunch of Grapes” and “Fruit with a Monkey” and there are four of his paintings in the collection at Gosford.

After retiring as a painter, Jones moved to Newcastle and became a picture dealer specialising in old masters.