Andrew Hamilton Hume arrived in New South Wales in 1790 as a superintendent of convicts. His early colonial service was marked by dispute and allegations of criminality. But by the 1820s Hume was an established grazier, and politically allied to the colonial elite. He was the father of the explorer Hamilton Hume. 

This portrait, painted in the late 1840s, depicts Hume as a settled and established figure with no hint of the turbulence of his early years in the colony. 

The frame is original to the work and was made by the Sydney framemaker, Lawrence Cetta, who employed convict–artist Joseph Backler.