Biography from Roger King Fine Art, Q - Z:
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 Raised in London, British painter Richard Westall was apprenticed in
1779 to a heraldic silver engraver. He studied at the Royal
Academy, where he exhibited from 1784 to 1836. He became an
Associate member of the Academy in 1792, and was elected Academician in
1794.
Some of Westall's works bear a strong resemblance to the
work of his two great contemporaries, Henry Fuseli and William
Blake. As an early practitioner of watercolor painting, Westall
did work that was sought after by publishers eager to use the medium to
illustrate books by prominent poets. Westall eventually
illustrated editions by Gray, Moore, Crabbe, Scott, Goldsmith, Milton,
and Byron. In 1790 he was commissioned by publisher-engraver John
Boydell, later mayor of London, to work on the renowned Milton and
Shakespeare sets.
Westall painted several portraits of Lord
Byron, who was one of the artist's great admirers. His portrait
of Milton is in Sir John Soane's Museum in London, and a series of
scenes depicting events in the life of Admiral Horatio Nelson are in
the Greenwich Maritime Museum.
In the 1820s Westall was appointed drawing master to Princess (later
Queen) Victoria, whose portrait as a young girl he also painted.
Westall held this post for eight years.
His works are in many British collections, including the Royal
Collection of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the House of Lords, the
British Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the Royal Academy of
Art, the Tate Gallery, Courtault Institute, and the Wallace Collection,
as well as in institutions in Europe, America, Australia, and New
Zealand.
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