To judge by the quality of the few known works by the Scottish miniaturist David Paton, he was one of the best draughtsmen in late seventeenth-century Britain. He worked mainly in plumbago, pencil and sepia, but also painted portraits in oil. He was in Italy in the 1670s, accompanying the youngest son of the Duchess of Lauder on his Grand Tour. By the turn of the century, Paton had moved from Scotland to London, his last documented work being a portrait of Sir Isaac Newton sent to Duke Cosimo III de' Medici in 1708.