Background
He was born in London on 28 January 1828, and studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf for five years beginning in 1841.
He was born in London on 28 January 1828, and studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf for five years beginning in 1841.
He specialized in historical pictures, often battle scenes. He is associated with the Düsseldorf school of painting. One painting from this period entitled The Last Evening of the Carnival was exhibited at Saint St. Petersburg in 1859.
He returned to London in 1864, and first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1866.
lieutenant was at this time that he began to work on historical subjects, especially of the Napoleonic Wars. He was a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy, British Institution and at other galleries.
While he was attracted to costume pieces such as An incident in the early life of Louis XIV and During the wanderings of Charles Edward Stuart, he also painted some contemporary military scenes, including his 1901 Research Associate painting South Africa, 1901 - The Dawn of Peace. The original paintings often come up at auction, and with a large amount of the collection dispersed in 1998, they are widely scattered.