Thomas Gainsborough was a landscape and portrait painter of great renown in eighteenth- century Britain. From about 1759 he painted portraits of the British gentry, and later the aristocracy. In 1759 he moved to the prosperous town of Bath to seek more sitters. Gainsborough became a founding member of the Royal Academy in 1769, and settled in London in 1774. He is known for his ability to capture the likeness and character of his sitters and for his superb handling of paint in a free and elegant style. Gainsborough became a favourite painter of the royal family; one of his masterpieces is Queen Charlotte (1781).