[1] Lambert was born in Kent and studied art under Warner Hassells and John Wootton, soon attracting attention by the quality of his landscape painting.

When Rich moved to Covent Garden Theatre, Lambert secured the assistance of Amigoni, and together they produced scenery of far higher quality than any previously executed.

Lambert was a man of jovial temperament and shrewd wit, and frequently spent his evenings at work in his painting-loft at Covent Garden Theatre, to which men of note in the fashionable or theatrical world resorted to share his supper of a beef-steak, freshly cooked on the spot.

Lambert was associated in 1735 with George Vertue, Hogarth, and John Pine (engraver, 1660–1756) in obtaining a bill from parliament securing artists a copyright on their works.

Hogarth considered Lambert a rival to the famous French landscape painter Claude Lorrain (1600–1682) with respect to his use of soft light to unify the scene in this painting.