A Captain of Banditti and his Family.

A romantically dressed bandit captain, wearing slashed doublet, cloak and feathered hat, stands by his wife who lounges on rocks in a secluded cove on the seashore, her child at her knee, and a bodyguard in the background. A pile of antique weapons lie at their feet. The son of a Sussex miller and born near the Goodwood estate, Mortimer studied art at the Duke of Richmond’s Academy in St. Martins Lane, and became a talented fellow pupil of Joseph Wright of Derby. Mortimer was a wild and dissolute character, and although after his marriage in 1775 he tried to reform his way of life, unfortunately his early excesses had ruined his health and he died soon after. The author, engraver and collector Samuel Ireland (d. 1800), began his career as a Spitalfields weaver, but soon took to dealing in prints and drawings and devoted his leisure to teaching himself drawing, etching, and engraving. His son was the Shakespeare forger William Henry Ireland.