This mosaic representing Hogarth is part of a cycle of monumental mosaic portraits depicting famous artists. The series of originally 35 mosaics was created between 1864 and circa 1875 for the South Court of the South Kensington Museum, the later V&A. The mosaics were originally installed on the side walls as part of a decorative scheme celebrating the arts. The mosaic is made after a painting by Eyre Crowe.

William Hogarth (1697-1764) was an English painter, satirist, engraver and art theorist. Hogarth's first real success came in 1732 with a series of six morality pictures, The Harlot's Progress, first painted and then engraved. The Rake's Progress and numerous other 'modern moral subjects' followed.
This portrait is closely based on The Painter and his Pug (1745), a self-portrait purchased by the National Gallery in 1824 (later transferred to the Tate). This portrait, which was widely known through an engraving of 1749, includes a depiction of Hogarth's pug dog, Trump, who serves as an emblem of the artist's own pugnacious character. In The Painter and his Pug the oval canvas containing Hogarth's portrait is propped up on volumes of Shakespeare, Swift and Milton, referring to Hogarth's dramatic and satirical intentions. In the full-length Valhalla portrait, where this particular visual conceit is not possible, these qualities are instead indicated by the comedic mask on the right. The palette is also taken directly from the self-portrait; on it is depicted the serpentine 'line of beauty' which was central to Hogarth's theories on art.

Although born in London, Eyre Crowe (1824-1910) spent his early years largely in Paris, and in 1839 entered the studio of the celebrated French history painter Paul Delaroche. He later settled in London and registered at the Royal Academy Schools. The first painting he exhibited at the Royal Academy was a historical genre painting, Master Prynne Searching Archbishop Laud's Pockets in the Tower. He became secretary to his cousin, the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray, and accompanied him on a lecture tour of America in 1852 as his 'factotum and amanuensis'. After his return to England, Crowe built a successful career as a painter of genre and historical subjects, often drawing on 18th-century literature. He exhibited annually at the Royal Academy from 1857 to 1908, but never attained the rank of Academician. He was an 'honorary member' of the St John's Wood Clique.

The series of mostly idealised portraits against gold backgrounds soon became known by the public as the Kensington Valhalla. The term alludes to the Vallhall as eternal home of heroes in Norse mythology. It also refers to the concept of a reunion of outstanding personalities of different periods by the means of art. An earlier example of such a hall of fame is the Walhalla near Regensburg in Germany (opened in 1842).

The selection of the Kensington Valhalla includes many famous artists, from Phidias and Apelles as representatives of ancient Greece to contemporaries such as the Irish painter William Mulready who had died only five years before his mosaic was completed.

Mosaics played an important part in the canon of materials and techniques used for the interior decoration of the new South Kensington Museum. The ambitious project of a revival of the art of mosaics involved one of the major Venetian mosaic companies of the time, Salviati & Co. It also led to the innovation of the technique by the introduction of vitrified ceramics mosaics made by Minton, Hollins & Co. These ceramics mosaics were created following the cartoons of professional artists by female students, including members of the family of Henry Cole.

The Kensington Valhalla remained in place until 1949. Some of the mosaics are now on display in other galleries of the museum. In addition to the mosaics themselves, preparatory sketches and cartoons by established contemporary artists such as Edward Poynter or Lord Leighton are part of the V&A collection.