Hoppner was the son of a German physician working at the court of George II; he was encouraged to become a painter by George III, studying drawings in the Royal Collection as well as attending the RA Schools. In 1793, after the death of Reynolds, Hoppner was appointed Principal Portrait Painter to the Prince of Wales.

William Markham was a scholar, churchman and courtier, who in 1771-6 acted as preceptor (chief tutor) to the two eldest sons of George III, George, Prince of Wales and Frederick, Duke of York. The Prince of Wales commissioned this portrait in 1798 when the sitter was Archbishop of York; it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1799; in the 1820s it hung in the Crimson Drawing Room of Carlton House, along with Reynolds’s Lord Erskine’ (RCIN 400688) and Lawrence’s ‘Lord Thurlow’ (RCIN 400712); all three portraits were sent to the ‘New Corridor’ (Grand Corridor) in Windsor in 1828.