Portraitist George Romney was born at Beckside, Dalton-in-Furness. From 1755 to 1757 he was apprenticed to portrait painter Christopher Steele at Kendal, moving with him to York and Lancaster, before settling in London in 1762. He won two prizes from the Society of Arts (1763, 1765). From 1773 to 1775 he studied in Italy, predominantly Rome. He never exhibited at the Royal Academy and yet became a fashionable portraitist. In 1781 he first met Emma Hart; his muse until her marriage to Sir William Hamilton when she gave up sitting to the artist. Portraits of Emma, many impersonating mythological or allegorical characters, are now his best known works. He retired to Kendal, to the home of his estranged wife Mary, three years before his death.
