Joseph Paul was born in Norwich in 1804. Nothing is known of his education or artistic training. He exhibited at the Norwich Society of Artists in 1823, 1829, and 1832, on the last two occasions as a portrait painter. Sometime after 1832 Paul seems to have run up against the law and fled from Norwich.

He acquired a studio in or near London, where he and his assistants turned out forgeries of Constable, Crome, and other East Anglian painters, and of Samuel Scott and other painters of old London views. He is said to have been married five times. At the time of his sudden death of syncope, early in May 1887, he was living at 53 William Street, St. Pancras.
[Hayes, John. British Paintings of the Sixteenth through Nineteenth Centuries...