David Wilkie

Sir David Wilkie made his name with lively scenes of everyday Scottish and English life: village politicians arguing, a blind fiddler playing, a family facing the bailiffs. His early paintings have the fine detail and warm tones of Dutch genre painting, with each face showing its own reaction.

He was born in Pitlessie in Fife and studied in Edinburgh and at the Royal Academy Schools in London. Success came fast: he was a full Academician by 1811. His Chelsea Pensioners Reading the Waterloo Dispatch (1822), painted for the Duke of Wellington, still hangs at Apsley House. After travels in Italy and Spain his style became broader and richer in colour. He became painter to William IV and Queen Victoria and was knighted in 1836.

Distraining for Rent and Boys Digging for Rats show his storytelling at its best. Look at how every figure in the crowd has a part to play.