James Sillett (1764–1840) was an English artist. He was born in Norwich, where he spent much of his career, in which he showed himself to be one of the most versatile of the Norwich School of painters. Although the great majority of his works were still lifes, he was also a drawing master, a miniaturist, and a landscape artist. His botanical paintings, which were used for book illustrations, show great skill and attention to detail. His paintings often had an academic style influenced by the masters of the eighteenth century, which set him apart from his Norwich contemporaries. He exhibited at the Royal Academy for over forty years, between 1796 and 1837. Sillett initially worked as an apprentice to a Norwich heraldic painter, before moving to London, where he was employed as a copyist by the Polygraphic Society. Together with the Norwich artist William Capon he painted scenery at Drury Lane and Covent Garden. He claimed to have studied at the Royal Academy from 1787 to 1790, but evidence for this is lacking. In 1801 he married Ann Banyard of East Dereham. In 1804 the couple returned to Norfolk, living in King's Lynn, where Sillett produced illustrations for Richard's History of Lynn. In 1811 he returned with his family to Norwich, where he lived for the rest of his life. He became Vice-President of the Norwich Society of Artists in 1814, and its President in 1815. Between 1826 and 1828 he published A Grammar to Flower Painting, and Views of the Churches, Chapels and Other Public Edifices in the City of Norwich: his topographical drawings are regarded as an accurate and valuable record of much of Norwich's lost nineteenth century architecture. Sillett died in 1840 and was buried in the city's Rosary Cemetery. His daughter Emma Sillett, who also painted flowers, was said to have been her father's greatest rival.
James Sillett (1764–1840) was an English artist. He was born in Norwich, where he spent much of his career, in which he showed himself to be one of the most versatile of the Norwich School of painters. Although the great majority of his works were still lifes, he was also a drawing master, a miniaturist, and a landscape artist. His botanical paintings, which were used for book illustrations, show great skill and attention to detail. His paintings often had an academic style influenced by the masters of the eighteenth century, which set him apart from his Norwich contemporaries. He exhibited at the Royal Academy for over forty years, between 1796 and 1837.