Little is known of the printmaker James Lightbody. Examples of his work were included in ‘Receuil de Marines et de Vaisseaux’, a collection of maritime prints, formed by the brothers Chéreau (one of the most prolific French print publishers) in 1754 in Paris for the Parisian connoisseur market and presented in a grand binding, created by the French bookbinder Antoine Michel Padeloup. Lightbody’s views of Portsmouth, Plymouth and Harwich were included. These prints had first been published in London in about 1710 by Thomas Taylor and engraved by H. Hulsbergh. The British Museum has a print of an elderly man walking with a crutch and stick, holding a begging bowl, which was etched by Lightbody.
