(b London, 31 Jan. 1735; d ?nr. Aleppo, Turkey [now Halab, Syria], ?1786). English portrait painter. After working in the Midlands and London, he became one of the first British painters to risk a long visit to India, where he spent the years 1769–76 and made a fortune painting nabobs and princes. He died on his way out a second time, having found it much harder to achieve success in England. Kettle's style was derivative (of Reynolds, Cotes, and Romney), but he ‘ranks fairly high among the lesser portraitists of his time’ (Ellis Waterhouse).