George Hayter was born at St James’s, London on 17 December 1792. He was the son of miniaturist and drawing-master, Charles Hayter (1761-1835). Initially tutored by his father, George entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1808. He studied under Henry Fuseli and was a highly regarded student and prize winner, despite the distractions of running away to sea and secretly marrying Sarah Milton, a lodger at his father’s house, who was ten years older than he. In 1815 Hayter was awarded the British Institution’s premium for history painting for The Prophet Ezra. He was also appointed Painter of Miniatures and Portraits to Princess Charlotte and to her husband Prince Leopold, afterwards King of the Belgians. In around 1816 Hayter’s first wife left him, for reasons which are not immediately apparent. He subsequently began a relationship with Louisa Cauty, daughter of Sir William Cauty, with whom he lived openly for the next decade and who bore him two children, Angelo and Louisa (despite not having sought a divorce from his first wife). Encouraged by his patron John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford, in the period 1816 to 1818 Hayter studied in Rome. He was elected member of the Academy of St Luke in Rome, and subsequently a member of the Academies of Parma, Bologna, Florence, and Venice. He returned to London in 1818. Although primarily a portrait painter, Hayter also painted some important historical works. In 1820 George Agar-Ellis (later Lord Dover) commissioned the Trial of Queen Caroline in the House of Lords (National Portrait Gallery). Hayter’s most successful contemporary history painting revealed a taste for high drama effectively realised. In the Trial of William, Lord Russell, in the Old Bailey in 1683 (1825; Woburn). In 1827 Hayter’s mistress, Louisa Cauty, died after poisoning herself with arsenic. Although it was apparently an accident in a bid for attention, it was widely assumed that he had driven her to suicide, and he was forced by the scandal to move from Florence to Rome. In late 1828, Hayter was in Paris, where his portraits of English society members (some exhibited at the Salon in 1831) were stylistically akin to the work of recent French portrait painters such as François Gérard. In 1831 he returned home to England. His grandiose plan to paint the first sitting after the passage of the Reform Bill resulted in his painting Moving the Address to the Crown on the Opening of the First Reformed Parliament in the Old House of Commons, 5 February 1833 (1843; National Portrait Gallery), for which he executed nearly 400 portrait studies in oil and took more than ten years to complete. After the death of Sir David Wilkie in 1841, Hayter was granted the title of ‘Principal Painter in Ordinary to The Queen.’ The appointment caused some annoyance at the Royal Academy, as the appointment had historically been the preserve of the President, then Sir Martin Archer Shee. Hayter was knighted the following year. He painted several important royal events, including Queen Victoria’s coronation of 1837 and marriage of 1840 and also the Christening of the Prince of Wales of 1843 (all in the Royal Collection). He also painted several royal portraits including his most well known work the State Portrait of Queen Victoria. Several versions of the portrait executed, with the assistance of the artist’s son Angelo, to be sent overseas as diplomatic gifts. Hayter’s active period at court was short-lived however, because Prince Albert much preferred the work of painters from his homeland of Germany. Notwithstanding, Hayter’s royal connections enabled him to build a prosperous and successful career as a portrait painter. He also painted several large religious paintings including two depicting important Reformist events, Bishop Latimer Preaching at Paul’s Cross and The Martyrdom of Bishops Ridley and Latimer (1855), both of which were gifted to the Art Museum, Princeton University, USA in 1984. He also produced fluent landscape watercolours (many of Italian views), etchings, decorative designs and sculpture. Sir George was three times married and was left a widower for the third time in 1867. Despite his good standing in royal circles, Hayter was never was admitted to the ranks of the Royal Academy for reasons believed to be not unconnected with his altogether scandalous personal life. He died at his home in the Marylebone Road, London on 18 January 1871, at the age of 78. The contents of his studio were auctioned at Christie’s, London, on 19 April 1871. His 1863 Portrait of Queen Victoria may be seen above.