Gage was Commander-in-Chief of the British Army in North America having served there during the Seven Years' War.

Gage was paying a visit from his headquarters in New York to Boston where Copley was based.

[2] Once completed, Gage hung it prominently in his house in Broad Street in New York.

[3] Gage then shipped it to London where it hung in the general's residence in Arlington Street in Piccadilly and was widely admired, a further encouragement for Copley's later move to Britain.

[4] Today it is in the collection of the Yale Center for British Art in Connecticut.