Self-Portrait

Charles Catton the elder RA, 1728–1798

ca. 1769

Oil on canvas

Yale Center for British Art

The portrait and animal painter Charles Catton was born in Norwich, one of thirty-five children. He achieved success in London mainly as a painter of coaches. He was eventually appointed coach-painter to King George III and was credited with being "the first herald-painter who ventured to correct the bad manner of painting the supporters of coats of arms." However, he also exhibited oil paintings and watercolors at the Society of Artists and, later, from 1769, as a foundation member of the Royal Academy. Catton's unusually fine self-portrait incorporates as a prop one of his paintings of a lion and lioness, dwelling with some modest