Robert Alexander Hillingford

He was born in London on 28 January 1828, and studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf for five years beginning in 1841.

He then traveled to Munich, Rome, Florence and Naples, where he married and worked for several years, producing paintings of Italian life.

He returned to London in 1864,[1] and first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1866; it was at this time that he began to work on historical subjects, especially of the Napoleonic Wars.

While he was attracted to costume pieces such as An incident in the early life of Louis XIV and During the wanderings of Charles Edward Stuart, he also painted some contemporary military scenes, including his 1901 RA painting South Africa, 1901 - The Dawn of Peace.

The original paintings often come up at auction, and with a large amount of the collection[clarification needed] dispersed in 1998, they are widely scattered.