By 1781 Stuart's progress was such that West desired to sit for a portrait by the younger painter, and the resulting painting was favorably received at that year's Royal Academy exhibition.

[4] Later in 1781 Stuart was approached by Sir William Grant, a well-placed young Scotsman from Congalton in East Lothian, not far from Edinburgh, who wished to commission a full-length portrait.

[3] Presently artist and patron left for the Serpentine in Hyde Park, where the two men took to the ice, and Grant engaged in a series of skating maneuvers that attracted an admiring crowd.

[5] Upon their return to the studio Stuart started to paint Grant's head directly—he never drew with a pencil[6]—then stopped and suggested a composition inspired by their venture on the ice.

[7] Behind Grant is a winter landscape of restrained tones composed of distant skaters, trees, and a far-off London skyline that includes Westminster Abbey.

Connoisseur John Collum wrote "One would have thought that almost every attitude of a single figure had long been exhausted in this land of portrait painting, but one is now exhibited which I recollect not before—it is that of skating".