William Quiller Orchardson was born at Edinburgh on 27 March 1832. At the age of 15 he was sent to the Trustees’ Academy, then under the mastership of Robert Scott Lauder. His student contemporaries included Thomas Faed, James Archer (1823-1904) and Robert Herdman. As a student, Orchardson did not shine and his work was distinguished by a peculiar reserve and an unusual determination that his hand should be subdued to his eye. By the time he was 20 Orchardson had mastered the essentials of his art, and had produced his portrait of the sculptor John Hutchison. For the next seven years, he worked in Edinburgh, some of his attention being given to a ‘black and white’ style, having been partly acquired at a sketch club, which, in addition to Hutchison, included among its members Hugh Cameron, Peter Graham, George Hay and William McTaggart. After his early training, Orchardson returned as a senior student to the Trustees’ Academy between 1850 and 1855 to benefit from the teaching of Robert Scott Lauder. During that period, he established friendships with a group of slightly younger artists, including John Pettie, Thomas Graham (1840-1906), John MacWhirter and Peter Graham (1836-1921), who together were later to form an artistic and social circle in London. In 1862, at the age of 30, Orchardson moved to London and established himself at 37 Fitzroy Square, where be was joined twelve months later, by his friend John Pettie. These two artists were quickly recognised by the critics as members of the new ‘Scottish School’, sharing characteristics of subject-matter, style, technique and composition. Orchardson confined himself to the simplest themes and designs, to the most reticent schemes of colour. Among his most highly regarded pictures during the first 18 years after his move to London were The Challenge, Christopher Sly, Queen of the Swords, Conditional Neutrality, Hard Hit - perhaps the best of all, portraits of his wife and her father, Charles Moxon. In all these, good judgment and a refined imagination were united to a restrained but consummate technical dexterity. During these same years he made a few drawings on wood, turning to account his early facility in this mode. In 1865 Pettie married, and the Fitzroy Square ménage was broken up. In 1868 Orchardson was elected ARA. 1870 he spent the summer in Venice, travelling home in the early autumn through a France overrun by German armies. His marriage to Helen Moxon took place in 1873, and in 1877, he was elected RA. That same year, he finished building a house at Westgate-on-Sea, with an open tennis-court and a studio in the garden. Orchardson’s wider popularity dates from 1881. To that year’s RA Exhibition his Napoleon on Board the Bellerophon. Its success with the public was instantaneous. He followed up in 1883 with his Voltaire, which, in the early 1890s, was bought for the Hamburg Art Gallery. Technically, Voltaire is, perhaps, his high-water mark. Fine both in design and colour, it is carried out with a supple dexterity of hand which has scarcely been equalled in the British school since Gainsborough. It was followed, in 1884, by the Manage de convenance, perhaps the most popular of all Orchardson’s pictures; in 1885, The Salon of Madame Récamier; in 1886,  After, the sequel to the Manage de convenance, and A Tender Chord, in 1887,  The First Cloud; in 1888, Her Mother’s Voice; and in 1889,  The Young Duke, a canvas on which he returned to much the same pictorial scheme as that of the Voltaire. He subsequently exhibited a series of pictures in which use was made of the furniture and costumes of the early years of the 19th century, the subjects, as a rule, suggesting a title. An Enigma, A Social Eddy, Reflections, If music be the food of love, play on!, Music, when sweet voices die, vibrates on the memory and Her First Dance, – in these, he introduced harpsichords, spinets, pianofortes, Empire chairs, sofas and tables, Aubusson carpets, short-waisted gowns, delicate in material and primitive in ornament. Orchardson’s portraits were not numerous, but among them are a few which were acclaimed, most notable amongst which was Master Baby. Orchardson was a candidate for the presidency of the Royal Academy in 1896 and was knighted in June 1907. He continued painting to the end of his life, and had three portraits ready for the RA in his last year. He died in London on 13 April 1910, some two-and-a-half weeks after his 78th birthday. His Master Baby may be seen above.