Stuart was an American painter who was also active in England and Ireland. He was in London from 1775 until 1787, where early in 1775, he entered the studio of Benjamin West, for whom he painted drapery and finished portraits. Stuart exhibited for the first time at the Royal Academy in the spring of 1787. He maintained an expensive London establishment, and had considerable success as a fashionable portrait painter to both English and American sitters who found themselves in London. However, in 1787, Stuart fled to Dublin – almost certainly to escape his creditors – and where he remained for five years. In the spring of 1793, he returned to America, leaving behind scores of unfinished canvases. He subsequently lived and worked in New York, and then Philadelphia, where George Washington posed for him during 1795. He moved to Boston in 1805 where he remained for the rest of his life, both painting and advising fellow artists.