Shelley was highly influenced by Sir Joshua Reynolds, who encouraged young artists to aspire to history painting, i.e., paintings of grand classical and religious subjects. Shelley also aspired to be more than a mere portrait painter, and hoped to demonstrate his learning, his invention and his originality through painting subject pictures. He was probably also encouraged by ventures such as the Shakespeare Gallery and Macklin's Poets Gallery, both of which commissioned oil paintings based on subjects from Shakespeare’s plays and English poetry. But the public was only interested in portrait miniatures, usually of loved ones, and Shelley failed to find a market for his subject miniatures. He was, however, a highly successful portraitist. He was employed at the court of George III and Queen Charlotte, and was ranked among the most well-known and fashionable miniaturists of his time. Many of his portraits were conventional heads painted in an oval. But some, such as this portrait of the Craufurd sisters, show the continued influence of Reynolds, by imitating both the complexity of composition and the rich colours of oil portraits.