George O'Neill was born in Dublin but left for England in 1837, and was accepted at the Royal Academy Schools in 1845. A successful student, he regularly exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1847 onwards, and gained a reputation as a painter of charming narrative scenes.

He was a member of the Cranbrook Colony, a group of artists who settled in Cranbrook, Kent from 1854 onwards and were inspired by seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish painters. They have been referred to as 'genre' painters as they tended to paint scenes of everyday life that they saw around them, typically scenes of domestic life; cooking and washing, children playing and other family activities.

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