Richard Brompton is believed to have been born in 1734. Little is known of his family, or early life, but what is known is that he trained as a painter in London, working in the studio of Benjamin Wilson. In 1757 he left London to travel in Italy. That would prove to be a formative experience both in terms of his artistic development and self-advancement. In Rome, he was fortunate enough to study with one of the foremost figures of the Classical movement, Anton Raphael Mengs (1728-79), the German history and portrait painter. Also in Rome, he encountered Charles Compton, 7th Earl of Northampton, who became his patron and protector and who introduced him to the Duke of York. On his return to London in 1765, Brompton set up a modest portraiture practice. In Venice in 1764 he had painted a conversation piece featuring the Duke of York and several friends. It was exhibited at the Society of Artists in 1767 and brought him to the attention of the British public. Brompton’s portraits display lively and engaging expressions, sharp colours and glossy paintwork. His three-quarter-length Portrait of Admiral Sir Charles Saunders (1773) may be found in the collection of the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich. Sir Charles commanded the naval force, which covered General James Wolfe’s army in the taking of Quebec from the French in 1759. We know from a contemporary letter, dated 1772 from Lord Hood to Lady Chatham that Saunders sat at least three times for the portrait. Brompton exhibited regularly between 1767 and 1777 with the Free Society of Artists, the Society of Artists and at the Royal Academy. In the 1770s he painted full-length portraits of the Prince of Wales and his brother Prince Frederick, which were shown at the Royal Academy, but he exhibited his work mostly at the Society of Artists, of which he became president in 1773. However, Brompton’s passage in life was complicated by his pretensions, his irascibility and his unwillingness to pay his debts. Despite his engaging portrait style, Brompton was not overly successful and in 1779, he was imprisoned in the King’s Bench debtor’s prison. His wife travelled to St Petersburg, to the court of the Empress Catherine the Great. She carried with her a portrait executed by her husband of the great English statesman Lord Chatham. Catherine ordered Brompton’s debts paid, which secured his immediate release, upon which, he travelled to Russia to take up an appointment as painter to the Empress. Sir James Harris, the British ambassador reported of Brompton: ‘He behaves well on the whole, a little lazy, and not quite as fond of the truth as an honest man.’ Following the death of Stefano Torelli in July 1780, Brompton greatly improved his position when he was appointed official painter to the imperial court. Although British artists and artisans had been pretty much ignored in mainland Europe through the first half of the 18th century, by the end of Catherine’s reign in 1796, they were firmly entrenched within the Russian court. And these makers of jewellery, ceramics, silver and furniture, designers of palaces and gardens, and producers of paintings and engravings contributed in no small way to the Westernisation of Russian culture. One useful by-product was a significant Anglo-Russian cultural interchange. Most of what they wrought became part of the collections at the Hermitage, the great palace-museum in St Petersburg, built as a retreat by Catherine in 1765 and later enlarged. In Brompton’s highly complementary portrait of her, painted in 1782 when she was 53, she wears an ermine stole, a small imperial crown and a pleasant, but firmly regal smile, her double chin artfully fudged in the flattering long oval of her face. In time, the work of other illustrious British talents such as Anthony van Dyck, Godfrey Kneller, Peter Lely, Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, Joseph Wright of Derby, Thomas Lawrence, John Hoppner and Benjamin West would all find their way to the Hermitage. Brompton was one of a trio of British painters employed by Catherine. The others were George Carter (1737-94) and the Scot Edward Francis Cunningham (1742-95). Brompton died at St Petersburg in 1783. His Portrait of Grand Dukes Alexander Pavlovich and Constantine Pavlovich (1781) and Portrait of Catherine II (1782) may be found in the Hermitage at St Petersburg. His Portrait of William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, 1772 may be found in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery in London.