Born in England in 1791, John Larking Scarvell was a captain with the East India Company trading in the Pacific. Scarvell married Sarah Redmond in Sydney in 1828 and together they became significant landholders in the Windsor region. 

In 1855 Scarvell commissioned artist Richard Noble, an accomplished and sophisticated portraitist, to paint individual portraits of his family. Over the course of the year Noble lived in the Scarvell home, Clare House in Windsor, and completed portraits of John and Sarah, and the elder six Scarvell children. The largest multi-portrait commission known in colonial era Australia, the Scarvell family portraits are a powerful statement of colonial success and aspiration.