West’s arrival in England from Italy in 1763 occurred at a time when artists were seeking to create a distinguished national school of history painting. George III was eager to support such a goal and was also a keen supporter of the proposal to found a national academy for the teaching and display of arts: his patronage of West and the foundation of the Royal Academy in 1768 were closely intertwined. At the King’s instruction, The Departure of Regulus (OM 1152, 405614) was shown at the first Royal Academy exhibition in 1769; he succeeded Sir Joshua Reynolds as President of the Royal Academy in 1792.

West painted around sixty pictures for George III between 1768 and 1801. From 1772 he was described in Royal Academy catalogues as ‘Historical Painter to the King’ and from 1780 he received an annual stipend from the King of £100. In the 1780s he gave drawing lessons to the Princesses and in 1791 he succeeded Richard Dalton as Surveyor of the King’s Pictures.

West created the first version of this painting (National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa) in 1770 and exhibited it at the Royal Academy in 1771, the same year that the King commissioned this autograph repetition for 300 guineas. At the same time, between 1769 and 1773, George III was assembling a group of three pairs of neo-classical history paintings to hang in his ‘Warm Room’ (a private sitting room) at Buckingham Palace (OM 1152-7, 405416-7, 405683-4 and 407524-5). This painting joined the set and clearly influenced the next pair to be commissioned (OM 1156-7, 407524-5), which deal with the same perennial subject, the exemplary death. In the foreground centre Wolfe is dying in the arms of officers with a circle of mourning figures around them, including a seated, pensive Native American man on the left; beyond, on the right, British troops disembarking in the St Lawrence River and, on the left, a running figure carrying a flag.