John Trivett Nettleship (1841-1902) was born in Kettering, the second son of Henry John Nettleship, a solicitor in the Kettering firm of Lamb and Stringer. He was educated at Durham school, and after devoting a brief period of his life to the Law, studied painting at Heatherley’s and at the Slade School. According to Sir Alfred East, when Nettleship ‘seriously began art work it was soon apparent that his most marked talent was as a delineator of animals, especially savage wild animals, and he soon began, and continued for many years, to work at the Zoological Gardens [London Zoo], where he made the studies for the greater number of his paintings.’ He became widely known as a painter of animals and exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy, Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours, the Grosvenor Gallery and the New Gallery. He married the daughter of James Hinton, aural surgeon, in 1876. Their eldest daughter Ida married the painter Augustus John. Nettleship died in 1902 at his residence in Wigmore Street, London, aged 61.