Sir William Quiller Orchardson RA (27 March 1832 – 13 April 1910)[1] was a Scottish portraitist and painter of domestic and historical subjects who was knighted in June 1907, at the age of 75.

For the next seven years he worked in Edinburgh, some of his attention being given to a "black and white" style, his practice in which having been partly acquired at a sketch club, which, in addition to Hutchison, included among its members Hugh Cameron, George Hay and William McTaggart.

In 1862, at the age of thirty, Orchardson moved to London, and established himself at 37 Fitzroy Square, where he was joined twelve months later by his friend John Pettie.

Among his most highly regarded pictures during the first eighteen years after his move to London were The Challenge, Christopher Sly, Queen of the Swords, Conditional Neutrality, Hard Hit – perhaps the best of all – and, within his own family, portraits of his wife and her father, Charles Moxon.

[citation needed] The period between 1862 and 1880 was one of quiet ambitions, of a characteristic insouciance, of life accepted as a thing of many-balanced interests rather than as a matter of Sturm und Drang.

In 1891 he appears in a group portrait of a Royal Society soiree between the actress Ellen Terry and the organiser of nurses Rachel Ward, Countess of Dudley.

To that year's Royal Academy summer exhibition he sent the large Napoleon on board the Bellerophon, which was acquired for the national collection by the Trustees of the Chantrey Bequest for Tate.

", "Music, when sweet voices die, vibrates on the memory", "Her First Dance" — in these, opportunities are made to introduce old keyboard instruments, Aubusson carpets, and short-waisted gowns.