George Frederic Watts was one of the leading portrait painters of the nineteenth century. It was said that 'the world begged' to sit for him.

From the late 1840s, Watts began to paint portraits of leading politicians, writers, artists and thinkers for a series that became known as the 'Hall of Fame'. Watts intended this series to memorialise those who had had the biggest impact on Victorian society. He called the subjects of these portraits 'the men who make England - the prominent men who may hereafter be found to have made or marred their country'. He gifted over 50 works to the National Portrait Gallery, London, as part of his bequest to the nation.