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Francis Alleyne specialised in small-scale oil portraits, often in oval format, drawing his sitters from the landed gentry, wealthy merchants, Army and Navy officers. He seems to have specialised in small, oval, three-quarter lengths, usually signed on the back, which look like middle class versions of Wheatley's more elegant small portraits.He exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1774 and at the Society of Artists in 1790. Alleyne was an itinerant portrait painter visiting country houses mainly in the south-east of England.