Guy Lennox Prendergast was born in Ireland in June 1773, the son of Thomas, deputy registrar of the Court of Chancery in Dublin. His family was of Royal descent from King Edward I of England and through the Irish Peerage. From 1792 he spent the greater part of his active life in India in the service of the East India Company and the Bombay Civil Service being Judge and Magistrate, Collector of Customs, General Reporter of Commerce and Member of the Bombay Supreme Council. He returned to England from India in 1826 and took a seat as Member of Parliament for Lymington in Hampshire. He married twice, firstly Dorothy Christian Lushington at Ramnad in the East Indies in February 1801; she died in July 1821 having had four sons and three daughters. Secondly, Eliza Emma Grieve at Bombay, India in July 1822, with whom he had a son and two daughters. He died at his home in Grafton Street, London in February 1845.

The artist James Ramsay started as `a portrait and miniature painter’ from his father’s business as a carver and gilder in Sheffield. He is recorded practicing from his first fixed studio in London from 1808 where his clientele soon expanded to include peers, generals, parliamentarians and the affluent middle-classes. He appears to have quickly moved away from standard miniature painting to undertake larger portrait commissions as his practice developed in London. This said, he did occasionally produce small scale portraits as a preliminary stage in the painting process, sometimes these were then worked up to a larger version, as was the case with some of the paintings of the Clifford family at Ugbrooke House in Devon. These unusual small portraits, such as this of Guy Prendergast, display much detail, usually around the head as befits a former miniaturist, which gracefully contrasts with brisker more fluid work across the main body of the sitter, a vigorous refreshing approach on such a scale. In this instance the obvious influence of London’s reigning portrait genius of the day Sir Thomas Lawrence is apparent, perhaps not unsurprising given that this was painted around 1827. Examples of Ramsay’s work can be found in London at the National Portrait Gallery.

Various papers concerning the sitter and his family are included with the painting.