Although he retained an Edinburgh studio, Ramsay’s strategic move to London in 1738 extended both his clientele and his reputation as one of Britain’s most gifted portraitists. Among his southern clients was the barrister George Bristow, later Clerk to the Merchant Taylors’ Company in London. As the youngest son of Robert Bristow of Micheldever House in Hampshire, he posed in a magnificent waistcoat in the gold, silver and plum colours of his family's coat of arms.