Thomas Barker (1769–1847) was born at Trosnant near the village of Pontypool, in Monmouthshire. He was the most talented and is the best known of the Barker dynasty of artists, which included his father Benjamin, two of Thomas's brothers (Benjamin and Joseph) and also his sons, Thomas Jones and John Joseph.
Thomas Barker was entirely self-taught, having shown a remarkable talent for drawing figures and designing landscapes from an early age. When he was sixteen his family moved to Bath where the patronage of an opulent coach-builder named Charles Spackman allowed him to follow his talent as an artist. During the first four years he employed himself in copying the works of the old Dutch and Flemish masters. At the age of twenty-one he was sent to Rome with ample funds to maintain his position there as a gentleman. While there he painted very little, copying works at the Uffizi, but mainly contenting himself with society life.
Barker was a prolific and commercially extremely successful artist. He was an occasional exhibitor at the Royal Academy and the British Institution for almost fifty years, during which period he exhibited nearly one hundred pictures. His work 'The Woodman' (influenced by Gainsborough's painting of the same subject) was so popular that it was copied onto almost every possible material: Staffordshire pottery, Worcester china, Manchester cottons, and Glasgow linens. Barker amassed considerable property by the sale of his works, and spent a large sum in building a mansion for his residence at Sion Hill in Bath, where he established a gallery of sculpture and other art.
Barker was also one of the first British artists to use lithography as a print medium. His series of 'Rustic Figures after Nature' published in Bath in 1813 is the first series of lithographs by a British single artist.
