Renowned as one of the great portrait painters of the later Victorian era, George Frederick Watts saw himself as part of the tradition of history painting.

Watts was serious-minded and lacked a sense of humor. His imaginative subject paintings evolved into "symbolical" works on which he intended his future reputation to rest but he was at his best as a portraitist.

In his middle age, the serious minded and already-aged painter, made a short lived and totally disastrous marriage to the teenaged Ellen Terry the great actress.

After remarriage to Mary Fraser-Tyler in 1886, Watts took up sculpture, and produced a relatively small number of outstanding works. After his death, Mary Watts devoted the rest of her life to the care of her husband's genius and preserving his reputation around the world.