William Salter

Studied painting under Royal Academician James Northcote from 1822 to 1827. Following his training he travelled to Florence where, in 1831, he exhibited his Socrates before the Judges of the Areopagos. Success led to his election as a member of the Florentine Academy of Fine Arts and he held the office there of Professor of History until his return to England in 1833. He was a prolific portraitist, and many of his portraits served as preparatory works for his best-known work, The Waterloo Banquet at Apsley House (1839). He also painted religious, mythological, and historical subjects, exhibiting at the British Institution. He became a member of the Society of British Artists in 1846.

Text © National Portrait Gallery, London