Born in Germany as Johannes Zauffaly, Zoffany came to London in 1760 where he worked in the studio of Benjamin Wilson. The actor David Garrick admired Zoffany's work and urged him to turn his talents to painting scenes from the stage, and he had great success with his theatrical pictures. He also excelled as a portraitist, but his paintings are especially valuable to us as records of theatrical history and as portraits of the popular actors and actresses of the eighteenth century (Waterhouse 431-2).