[1] Callcott was born at Kensington Gravel Pits,[2] a village on the western edge of London, in the area now known as Notting Hill Gate.

But at the age of twenty he had determined to give up music,[4] became a student of the Royal Academy, and began his artistic career as a painter of portraits under the tuition of John Hoppner.

The first picture he exhibited was a portrait of Miss Roberts, and its success at the Royal Academy in 1799 is said to have led to his final choice of painting as a profession.

In that year he departed from his usual class of subjects, and exhibited a picture of Raffaelle and the Fornarina, with life-size figures, finished with great care, which was engraved by Lumb Stocks for the Art Union of London in 1843.

[2] The figures in his landscapes were often important parts of the composition, and were always gracefully designed and happily placed, as, for instance, in Dutch Peasants returning from Market.