Alfred Edward Chalon was born in Geneva, Switzerland on 15 February 1781. The Chalon family were French Protestants who had fled religious persecution in France. Odd as it may seem to the modern mind, at the end of the 18th century, the notion of training officers to command troops of the British Army was an entirely novel concept and such training was undertaken almost exclusively on a private basis by Frenchmen. Chalon’s father gained the appointment of professor at the Royal Military College at High Wycombe and the family moved to England. Chalon and his brother John James were both originally destined for a career in trade and placed in a counting house. After much drudgery and some protest, their father relented and both entered the Royal Academy Schools. In 1808 the brothers established among their friends the ‘Society for the Study of Epic and Pastoral Design’ which held weekly evening meetings to sketch with like-minded artists. Early members included C Stanfield, C R Leslie, T Unwins, J Christall, J Partridge, S J Stump and R Bone. That gathering was later known as the ‘Bread and Cheese’ Society, from the fare of their evening meetings and it would endure for some 40 years. Alfred exhibited at the RA from 1801, painted miniatures on ivory and also produced small portraits in watercolour on paper, often about 15 inches high.  He was a witty caricaturist and also painted genre and history subjects.  In 1808 he briefly exhibited with the ‘Associated Artists in Water-Colours’. He also had a great interest in the theatre, opera and ballet, undertaking many related commissions. Chalon was elected ARA in 1812 and RA in 1816. Being the younger brother of the two and elected first, this has caused no little confusion in the record keeping of the RA. In a letter of 12 May 1833, a Mrs Newton recorded her impression of her neighbours in Great Marlborough Street: ‘The Chalon family consists of Mr Chalon, a very old French gentleman, Alfred, John and Miss Chalon. They are devoted to one another and the merriest people I ever saw. We hear them chattering away in French as they sit out on their leads, where they roll out a great easy chair for the old gentleman - and then such peals of laughter.  I think Mr Chalon must be a very droll old man in his own language (he spoke very broken English when I called upon him) for they seem to laugh a great deal at what he says. Miss Chalon is very clever and an excellent woman. She is almost as tall as her brother Alfred, who is a large man with reddish hair. John Chalon is short and stout and also a professional painter – paints landscape in oils. The other night they went to a fancy dress ball; Miss Chalon and her brothers – she as a Swiss peasant, John as a Spanish peasant and Alfred as a ballet dancer. Though very dreadful and unfeminine he looked in low neck, lace petticoats, white silk stockings, satin shoes and a Duchesse de Berri hat without a crown – just a brim turned up with the feathers and the hair dressed above. They thought it great fun, but I thought it shocking – this great man with his shaven red beard and bare arms, but he was very cleverly gotten up.’ Chalon’s talent lay primarily in painting miniature watercolour portraits and he had an elegance to his style that was flattering to the sitter. His work found favour with the ladies of the Court and consequently, became highly fashionable. Queen Victoria asked Chalon to paint her portrait upon the occasion of her first state visit to the House of Lords on 17 July 1837, as a memento and gift to her mother, the Duchess of Kent. He produced a striking portrait, with the young queen in her robes of state, posed before the Lords’ Grand Staircase. He was then appointed Portrait Painter in Water Colour to Her Majesty. The portrait he produced was engraved and the head and shoulders version went on to appear on early British and colonial postage stamps, thus carrying his image to the four corners of the British Empire, and beyond. Chalon’s Portrait of Charles Robert Leslie appears above. In the early days of daguerrotype portraiture, Queen Victoria asked Chalon whether he were not afraid that photography would ruin his profession. He responded in his customary Franglais: ‘Ah, non, Madame, photographie can’t flatère.’ Chalon never married and he lived with his brother John James Chalon (1778-1854) successively at Berners Street, Great Marlborough Street and finally, Kensington. He died at his home at Campden Hill, Kensington on 3 October 1860. He was buried in the same grave as his brother in Highgate Cemetery. Good representative examples of Chalon’s work may be found in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery in London.