His father was of German extraction, and his mother was one of the German attendants at the royal palace. As a boy he was a chorister at the royal chapel and in 1775 entered as a student at the Royal Academy. In 1778 he took a silver medal for life drawing, and in 1782 he won the Academy's highest award, the gold medal for historical painting. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1780. His earliest interest was for landscape, but necessity obliged him to turn to the more lucrative business of portrait painting. At once successful, he had throughout life the most fashionable and wealthy sitters and was the greatest rival of the king's painter, Thomas Lawrence. The prince of Wales especially patronized him, and many of his finest portraits are in the state apartments at St. James's Palace.