Born in Mulhouse, the French/Swiss born painter and architect Johann Heinrich Müntz (John Henry Muntz) traveled to Spain and Italy after serving the French army. He specialised in the Rococo style which he masterly skilled after copying antique vases in Rome for two years. In 1754 he met Richard Bentley (1708-1782) who brought the artist to England where he introcuded him to Horace Walpole (1717-1797) for whom he would work for four years at Strawberry Hill House until the two quarreled over relationship matters and Müntz went to work in Kew Gardens, London in 1759, the year in which the present drawing of a gardeners boat for the London market was drawn.
