Engraving of Robert Fulton , Thomas Oldham Barlow . Print, mezzotint, on laid india, 47x39cm., platemark 32.8x23cm., oval image 22.7x18.6cm., HL to R. After an oil by or after Charles Willson Peale ). Facsimile signature, b.r. with pencilled inscription: 'T Oldham Barlow', unpublished proof Prof.B. Woodcroft. Robert Fulton (1765-1815) an american engineer and inventor, developed a commercially successful steamboat, was commissioned by Napoleon to design the first practical submarine and invented among the earliest torpedoes for the Royal Navy. Thomas Oldham Barlow (1824-1889) was an English mezzotint engraver who popularised the work of many painters. Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827) was an american painter, soldier, scientist, inventor, politician and naturalist.

This portrait formed part of the Bennet Woodcroft Bequest, which was among the founding collections of the Science Museum. Woodcroft had developed a 'National Gallery of Portraits of Inventors, Discoverers and Introducers of the Useful Arts’ combining gifts, loans and purchases of portraits, while acting as the first curator of the Patent Museum.