John Cawse (25 December 1778 – 19 January 1862) was a British painter and caricaturist.

He was born on 25 December 1778, the son of Charles Woodruffe Cawse and his wife Mary, of Little Prescott Street, Whitechapel.^[1] His father described himself in his will as a "Staymaker and Dealer in Whale Fins".^[2]

Early in his career he was employed to draw caricatures by the print publisher SW Fores.^[1] He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1802,^[3] showing mostly portraits, but also some paintings of horses and, from the early 1830s, a few historical pictures.^[4] Between 1807 and 1845 he exhibited at the British Institution, predominantly showing literary and historical subjects, including scenes from the works of Shakespeare and Walter Scott.^[5] His portrait of the clown Joseph Grimaldi is in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery ^[6] and his 1826 painting of Carl Maria von Weber is in that of the Royal College of Music.^[7]

He is best remembered for his book The Art of Painting Portraits, Landscapes, Animals, Draperies, &c., in oil colours, published in 1840.^[3] He was an amateur musician who, unusually for the time, played the antiquated viola da gamba (i.e. the bass viol);^[8] an instrument he once owned is in the Victoria and Albert Museum.^[9]

He married Mary Fraser; two of their daughters, Mary and Harriet Cawse, became opera singers; another, Clarissa Sabina, was a miniature painter^[1]

• On her Spanish guitar, she played a ditty which lulled her old guardian to sleep, 19th century
• Falstaff ridiculing Bardolph's nose, c. 1820
• Falstaff choosing his recruits, 1818
• Bardolph and Falstaff putting Wart through the drill, 1827?
• Pistol announcing to Falstaff the death of the King, c. 1820
• Pistol announcing to Falstaff the death of the King, c. 1820s
• Autolycus selling his wares, c. 1830