Lionel Smith Beale (1828–1906) graduated in chemistry and zoology from London University, and worked as an anatomical assistant to the famous teacher and physician Henry Acland at Oxford University. In 1852 he established his own laboratory where he taught microscopy and physiology, and the following year he was appointed professor of physiology at King’s College London. Beale became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians when he was only 31, and at the same time he became physician at King’s College Hospital. In 1869 he became professor of pathological anatomy and later professor of medicine. The portrait was painted by the English artist Henry Tanworth Wells in 1876. Wells trained as an artist at a very young age, and first exhibited at the Royal Academy aged 18.