Frank Holl was considered 'The English Velasquez' and was one of the most successful and fashionable portrait painters of his age, numbering the Prince of Wales, Millais and Gladstone amongst his sitters.

Success bought him a studio house in Hampstead and another in the country. He had turned to portrait painting, however, out of necessity as genre painting fell out of fashion by the late 1870s. Holl's early reputation had been established, along with Hubert von Herkomer and Luke Fildes, as early contributors to The Graphic magazine. His work had 'wrought pathos from social realism', unflinchingly tackling suffering, grief and poverty in pictures such as No Tidings from the Sea (Royal Col...