Brief Biography-Thomas Hickey, a celebrated portraitist, was born in Dublin in 1741. He trained at the Dublin Society Schools and later became influenced by Thomas Gainsborough. Hickey visited Italy for six years and ventured to London after spending three years in Dublin without much progress. His paintings achieved a reasonable amount of success; however, he moved to Bath to fill the void left by Gainsborough’s departure, to no avail. In 1780, Hickey sailed for India, and a Spanish fleet waylaid him to Lisbon, where Hickey painted several unique portraits of nobility. In 1784, he made it to Calcutta and painted his most well-known works, consisting mainly of army officers and Indian servants. There, his History of Ancient Painting and Sculpture got published. In 1792, he went to China on an expedition with Lord Macartney as a painter. He visited Dublin in 1796 for two years and returned to India in 1798. Apart from two journeys to Calcutta, he lived in Madras, now Chennai, for his life. Reports had it that he painted to perfection until his dying day in 1824.