Ralph Peacock was a portrait painter and landscape illustrator. In 1882 he entered South Lambeth Art School, for some years working there twice a week in the evening, meanwhile studying for the Civil Service. John Pettie, (1839-1893), however, suggested that he should take up painting as a profession, so he went to St John's Wood Art School, and finally to the Royal Academy schools in 1887, where he won the gold medal and the Creswick Prize. As well as exhibiting at the Royal Academy, the Society of British Artists and the Grosvenor Gallery from 1888, he also illustrated books and taught at St John Wood's Art School. He won a gold medal at Vienna in 1898 and a bronze medal at the Paris Exhibition Universelle in 1900. Ethel (Chantry Purchase, 1898) and The Sisters (1900) are now in the Tate Gallery.