Robert Home was trained at the Royal Academy Schools; he studied further in Italy and worked in Dublin before departing for Indian in 1790 where he spent the remainder of his career. He accompanied the British army during the Third (1789-92) and Fourth (1798-9) Mysore Wars and published engravings of his travels in Mysore (1794) and specifically Seringapatam (1796).

Richard, Marquess Wellesley (1760–1842), Governor General of Fort William from 1798 to 1805, and brother of Sir Arthur Wellesley, later 1st Duke of Wellington (1769-1852), founded The Indian Natural History Project which existed from 1801 to 1808. His collection of 2,660 folios of drawings of natural history paintings of plants, birds, mammals, insects and fishes are in the India Office Library. Home mentions painting a white leopard (a rare aberration) for Marquis Wellesley in his account book of 1805, which may refer to this picture. It is not documented again until it appears in Windsor in 1878. Presumably the same white leopard was recorded in a drawing in watercolour, attributed to the amateur botanist John Fleming (1747-1829) who is known to have worked alongside Home, as is now in the collection of the Victoria Memorial Hall, Kolkata.