James Brocas (1754 – September 1780) was an Irish portrait painter.

Life

James Brocas was born in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

in 1754. He was the fourth son of Robert and Bridget Brocas (née Taylor). His mother was from

Wexford Wexford () is the county town of County Wexford, Ireland. Wexford lies on the south side of Wexford Harbour, the estuary of the River Slaney near the southeastern corner of the island of Ireland. The town is linked to Dublin by the M11/N11 N ...

. His younger brother, Henry, was also an artist. Brocas studied at the

Dublin Society The Royal Dublin Society (RDS) ( ga, Cumann Ríoga Bhaile Átha Cliath) is an Irish philanthropic organisation and members club which was founded as the 'Dublin Society' on 25 June 1731 with the aim to see Ireland thrive culturally and economi ...

's Drawing School, winning prizes in 1772 and 1773. He went on to become a portrait and miniature painter from his home, 64 Dame Street, Dublin. An advertisement for his services appeared in the '' Freeman's Journal'' on 28 February 1778, announcing his return to Dublin. He married in 1777. He died in September 1780, and was buried in St Andrew's Churchyard, Dublin. There are no known finished works attributed to him, with all information about his techniques coming from his advertisements. It seems that he used a variety of materials such as a mixture of oil paints and crayons. Given the price he charged for bust-length profiles, a half-a-crown, it is likely these were silhouettes. His four nephews by his brother Henry all became artists in their own right, James Henry, Samuel Frederick,

William William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

, and Henry.

References

External links

Sketches attributed to Brocas from the collections of the
National Library of Ireland {{DEFAULTSORT:Brocas, James 1754 births 1780 deaths Irish artists Artists from Dublin (city)