Nothing is known of his early training, nor of the reason or date of his journey to London, though he is said to have been the second painter to study with West, and may be one of the figures in The American School, the well-known painting by Matthew Pratt.
[4] He left that city soon after the arrival of Charles Willson Peale in February, 1767; the latter artist recorded that Delanoy had remained in town long after West believed he had returned home.
[1] He had less success than other London trained painters, such as Peale or Henry Benbridge, but did find patronage among members of the Beekman family, formerly patrons of Lawrence Kilburn.
[2] From June 1784 until April 1787, Delanoy was in New Haven, Connecticut, employed as a general painter;[1] a single pastel dating to this time is his only known work in that genre.
[7] Susan Clay Sawitzky suggested that he was the so-called Sherman Limner, two of whose works are in the National Gallery of Art, but this identification is not universally accepted.