Of noble Hungarian and Bohemian origin, Johan Zoffany was born near Frankfurt on 13 March 1733, the son of a cabinet maker and architect of the court of Alexander Ferdinand, 3rd Prince of Thurn and Taxis.

[2] He undertook an initial period of study in a sculptor's workshop in Ellwangen during the 1740s, possibly the shop of Melchior Paulus, and later at Regensburg with the artist Martin Speer [de].

In the autumn of 1760, he arrived in England and initially found work with the clockmaker Stephen Rimbault, painting decorative designs for his clocks.

In the later part of his life, Zoffany was especially known for producing huge paintings with large casts of people and works of art, all readily recognizable by their contemporaries.

In paintings like The Tribuna of the Uffizi, he carried this fidelity to an extreme degree – the Tribuna was already displayed in the typically cluttered 18th-century manner (i.e. with many objects hanging in a small area, stacked high on the wall), but Zoffany added to the sense of clutter by having other works brought into the small octagonal gallery space from other parts of the Uffizi.

Zoffany spent the years 1783 to early 1789 in India,[9] where he painted portraits including the Governor-General of Bengal, Warren Hastings, and the Nawab Wazir of Oudh, Asaf-ud-Daula;[10] an altarpiece of the Last Supper (1787) for St John's Church, Calcutta;[11] and a vibrant history painting, Colonel Mordaunt's Cock Fight (1784–86) (Tate), described by historian Maya Jasanoff as 'easily the liveliest illustration of early colonial India'.

Whether they married in Europe is uncertain, but Zoffany's portrait, Mary Thomas, the Artist's second wife (c. 1781–82), shows her wearing a wedding ring.

[16] Despite the high-profile the artist enjoyed in his day, as court painter in London and Vienna, Zoffany has, until very recently, been overlooked by art historical literature.

[18] This biography traces Zoffany's footsteps, from his youth in Germany, through his first years in London – working for clockmaker Stephen Rimbault – to his growing success as society and theatrical portraitist and founder-member of the Royal Academy, and following him on his Grand Tour and sojourn in India.

[19] In 2011 Mary Webster published her long-awaited and splendidly produced monograph on the artist: Johan Zoffany 1733–1810 (Yale University Press).

Behind the family group is the substantial villa on Richmond Hill overlooking the River Thames, built for Sayer between 1777 and 1780 to the designs of William Eves, a little known architect and property developer.

[22][23] Other scholars have drawn attention to the artist's propensity for wry observations, risqué allusions and double meanings, so that many of his paintings conceal as much as they reveal.