A half-length, self-portrait of William Anderson, showing him in a dark coat and white stock against a plain background. Anderson was a Scottish-born painter specializing in marine subjects, usually fairly small in scale. He initially trained as a shipwright, which helps to explain the attention to detail in the ships he painted. Having moved to London, he exhibited regularly both at the Royal Academy between 1787 and 1811 (then rather infrequently until 1834) and at the British Institution between 1810 and 1826. With his wife Sarah, he had two sons: William Guido entered the Navy and, as midshipman in the 'Bellona', was fatally wounded in action at the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801; George followed his father to become a painter, exhibiting intermittently at the Royal Academy between 1828 and 1852. This portrait was probably painted close to 1830 from the style of the sitter's coat.