During his long and prolific career, Bartholomew dominated the field of flower painting, with no rivals - except perhaps Anne Turnbull, his second wife. He exhibited principally at the Old Watercolour Society, of which he was a Member, but also showed at the Royal Academy, and was awarded the distinction of being appointed Flower Painter to Queen Victoria. In the middle years of the nineteenth century, the critics rhapsodised over his depiction of fruit and, especially, flowers: 'they are real enough to attract the bees of Hybla: they glow and flame with the rich hues of that fine colourist, Nature; they sway and droop like the real children of the garden, and seem like them to have fed on air and sunshine...' (The Athenaeum, 1856). Of the Azaleas exhibited here, the critic of the Art Union wrote that they 'present a variety of the most beautiful hues, laid in with the utmost mastery'.