Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fellowes, James (fl.1710-1730)

820689Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 18 — Fellowes, James (fl.1710-1730)1889Lionel Henry Cust

FELLOWES, JAMES (fl. 1710–1730), portrait-painter, is known for portraits of eminent clergymen of his time. In the print room at the British Museum there are portraits by him of Thomas Wilson, bishop of Sodor and Man (engraved by Vertue in 1726), Laurence Howell, the nonjuror, and Humphrey Gower, master of St. John's College, Cambridge (engraved by Vertue in 1719). Fellowes obtained notoriety as being the painter of the famous picture of the ‘Last Supper’ which was placed over the communion-table in the church of St. Mary, Whitechapel, by the Jacobite rector, Dr. Richard Welton. In this Dr. White Kennett [q. v.], dean of Peterborough, was portrayed as Judas Iscariot, no pains being lost to make the portrait unmistakable. This caused considerable offence, and the figure was altered by order of the Bishop of London, though the picture was allowed to remain.

[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Noble's Continuation of Granger's Biog. Hist. iii. 88; Kippis's Biog. Brit. (sub loc. ‘Kennett’).]