A superb and rare example of the artist�s workThis portrait is a fine example of the late 18th century English school, where the sitter is portrayed in a standard gentlemanly manner. Depicted in a blue coat with large gold buttons, white cravat, and a fashionable powdered wig which has been tied at the nape of the neck in a queue, it is striking in its recording of the respectable, learned, and amiable character of the sitter. It has been very finely painted, similar in detail to the work of a miniaturist, in the mid to late 1770�s when Walton had established a reputation as a fine painter. The format, overall style, and the finely rendered face are characteristic features of his work.Henry Walton (1746�1813) was a most pleasing and exquisite English painter, art dealer, art connoisseur, and art expert. He was a man whose company was much sought after because of his pleasant disposition a fact to be deduced from his paintings his high spirits, and his amusing anecdotal conversation. Walton was a friend of most of the English artists of his day, and it is probable that, since he was a friend of Gainsborough and was known to cherish a great admiration for that painter''s work, he was the same Walton who purchased the contents of Gainsborough''s studio after his death.Born at Dickleburgh near Diss in Norfolk, in 1746, he was brought up and lived in easy circumstances; his great-uncle being the famous admiral, Sir George Walton.In 1765, aged nineteen, Walton moved to London and in 1770 he enrolled at the Maiden Lane Academy, in Covent Garden, London, to study Art, and while there became a pupil of Johan Zoffany. After quitting the studio of that painter and setting up on his own, he married a neighbour, Miss Rust, who was also a painter and miniaturist, and soon after purchased a freehold estate, the Oak Tree Farm at Burgate in Suffolk. Here he lived and worked for many years, though he also travelled much and worked regularly and at frequent interval...