Christopher Steele (July 9, 1733 – 1768) was an English portrait painter from an affluent family in Egremont, Cumbria.
[1][2] In 1755, when Steele had a studio at Redmaynes Yard in Kendal, the young George Romney was apprenticed to him for four years on payment of £21.
But he failed to complete them, and his older brother Henry, who had emigrated to Maryland in the 1740s and had become a successful planter, had to make restoration to the families whose money Christopher had taken.
Grove Dictionary of Art says of him that, "Despite his dissipation and indolence Steele was far from being an "itinerant dauber," as he is sometimes described.
Steele's awareness of texture and finish place him far above the typical provincial painter of his time.