Barker, Thomas (1769–1847)

English landscape painter. After studying in Rome 1790–94, he settled in Bath, becoming known as ‘Barker of Bath’. A minor and imitative artist, he was popular for The Woodman, engraved by Bartolozzi, and his rustic scenes were much reproduced on china, pottery, and linen.

He was the son of Thomas Barker, an animal painter. Other artist members of the family were his brother Benjamin Barker (1776–1838), a landscape painter who exhibited at the Royal Academy 1800–21, and his son Thomas Jones Barker (1815–1882), who studied in Paris under Horace Vernet. He was a history painter among whose subjects was The Meeting of Wellington and Blücher about 1850.