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Ramsay executed Lord Bute's particularly fortunate full length portrat and many commissions followed. The artist was also largely employed in decoration, an industry which involved an army of assistants.
According to Dr. Alexander Cunningham, Edinburgh physician, even 'before he had the luck to become a favourite with the king, he was perfectly independent as to fortune, having, in one way or another, accumulated not less that forty thousand pounds, a sum which almost justified the jeremiads of Hogarth over the popularity of face-painting. What is perhaps more remarkable, however, is that he was not only highly in request as a portrait painter, but ws even preferred to Reynolds. It was the opinion of Walpole, for instance, that Ramsay excelled Reynolds as a painter of women. "Mr. Reynolds seldom succeeds in women; Mr. Ramsay is formed to paint them" (Letter to Dalrymple, 25 Feb.1758).
With the accession of George III his favour with the court increased, and in 1767 he succeeded John Shackleton as portrait painter to his majesty, an appointment with had the effect of turning his studio into a manufactory of presentments of royal and official personages, in which little but the head (and often not even that) was executed by himself. The king's inveterate habit of giving away elaborate full-lengths of himself and Queen Charlotte kept him constantly employed.
(Dictionary of national biography, Volume 47 By Sir Leslie Stephen, Sir Sidney Lee)