Sir Robert Ponsonby Staples, third son of Sir Nathaniel Staples, Bt, was born in Northern Ireland, educated in Belgium, and studied architecture and art in Louvain, Dresden, Paris and London. He exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy from 1875, and became central to London's fashionable Café Royal set around the turn of the century. His pictures include Gladstone Introducing the Home Rule Bill, which hangs in the House of Lords, and Cardinal Manning's Last Reception, which is at the Archiepiscopal Palace of the Archbishop of Westminster. Known as 'the barefoot baronet' for his practice of forgoing footwear, Staples is represented in a number of collections in the UK; the National Portrait Gallery, London has five of his portraits. Many of his paintings were made into prints.
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