Henry Walton’s earliest recorded portraits date from 1768. Walton was a pupil of Johann Zoffany (1733-1810) before studying at the Maiden Lane Academy in Covent Garden, London. During the 1770s, Walton worked as a portraitist, painting single portraits and conversation pieces. Among his most celebrated sitters were Edward Gibbon, the Revd William Gilpin, Horatio Walpole, first Earl of Orford, and Lord Cornwallis. In the 1780s, Walton had some success at genre paintings and by the early 1790s he was established as a picture dealer and adviser to some major private collectors, including Lord Fitzwilliam. He exhibited at the Society of Artists and the Royal Academy.
