John Wollaston (painter)

Stylistically, Wollaston's work bears some similarity to portraits by Thomas Hudson and Allan Ramsey, among others, and it has been suggested that his teacher was Joseph van Aken, who completed the drapery in paintings by these and other artists of the period.

A handful of other paintings dating to before his trip to the colonies also exist, including a portrait of an unidentified officer of the Royal Navy now in the National Gallery of Art.

[2] Wollaston crossed the Atlantic in 1749, settling for a time in New York City; there he introduced the latest and most fashionable of London styles in portraiture to American patrons.

[2] Wollaston travelled more widely in the American colonies than any other painter, and served to satisfy a growing demand for formal portraiture for merchants and landowners.

That his work was widely respected in his day can be seen from laudatory poetry published in the Maryland Gazette in 1753 and in a 1758 edition of The American Magazine and Monthly Chronicle for the British Colonies.

The former was penned by a "Dr. T. T." and reads in part: Wollaston's influence on younger artists was felt primarily in Philadelphia; there, painters such as Robert Feke, John Hesselius, and Benjamin West imitated his technique and compositions in their own output.