(b ?London, 1710; d London, ?May 1758). English engraver and draughtsman of French Huguenot descent. His early work includes a Watteauesque View of Richmond Palace (1736; Le Blanc 18) and a drawing manual, A New Book of Landskips (1737), both published by J. Rocque (d 1762). He was soon recognized as one of the best of the French landscape engravers in London, with great skill in preliminary etching, and was employed by Arthur Pond on his ambitious set of 44 Italian Landscapes (1741–3). Others who used Chatelain included the topographical artist William Bellers ( fl 1761–73), for whose plates of The London Hospital (1753) and Six Views in the North of England (1754; see Upcott, pp. 126–7) Chatelain provided the etching. He does not appear to have published prints himself. As well as working as a printmaker, he was in demand as a teacher and draughtsman. He made many fine landscape drawings, several of which are in the British Museum; they include Landscape with Sportsman and View on the Thames, below Westminster Bridge. On occasion he helped the topographers Samuel Buck (1696–1779) and his brother Nathaniel, for example in making a preliminary drawing (York, C.A.G.) for their print of Ripon (1745). In 1745 W. H. Toms (d 1765) engraved Ten Perspective Views ... of ... Hampstead and Highgate after Chatelain’s drawings, and in 1750 a drawing book, Fifty Small ... Views ... Adjacent to London, engraved by J. Roberts, was published. According to J. T. Smith, Chatelain was in reduced circumstances at the time of his death.

• Chatelain, Jean-Baptiste-Claude
  • Buck
  • Huguenots, §2(ii): Work and influence in England