John Rogers Herbert

However, after the death of his father in 1828, Herbert was forced to leave the Academy Schools and began painting professionally – mostly book illustrations and portraiture.

His early sketches predict his later interest in larger historical subjects with challenging moral themes and complex compositions.

Pugin, who was co-architect for the New Palace of Westminster, was a convert to Catholicism and had an influence on Herbert's decision to join the Catholic Church, which happened around 1840.

[5] Herbert's paintings The First Introduction of Christianity into Great Britain (1842) and Our Saviour Subject to his Parents in Nazareth (1847) were the inspiration for the two most important early works of William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais, founders of Pre-Raphaelitism.

[6][7] The two paintings, Hunt's A Converted British Family Sheltering a Christian Missionary and Millais' Christ in the House of His Parents were exhibited at the RA in 1850 to great controversy.

The commission followed several cartoon competitions and much national coverage, and Herbert was assigned a subject from Shakespeare, Lear Disinheriting Cordelia.

[9] After the success of Lear, Herbert was commissioned in 1850 to paint nine more frescoes in the Peer's Robing Room, on the theme of "Justice on Earth, and its development in Law and Judgement".

However, because of the delay, the death of Prince Albert and the unsuccessful fresco and waterglass techniques, Herbert's commissions for the other works were cancelled.