He was preferred to Reynolds by the royal family and in 1767 was appointed principal painter to George III (he was a good linguist and was the only courtier able to converse with the king and queen in German). However, after injuring his right arm in a fall in 1773 he gave up painting (although his studio continued to produce replicas of royal portraits, many for distribution to government representatives abroad) and thereafter devoted himself to his other interests. He was the son of the poet Allan Ramsay, and he inherited his father's literary inclinations: his main publication was Dialogue on Taste (1755). Political pamphleteering, classical archaeology (he revisited Italy in 1754–7, 1775–7, and 1782–4), and conversation took up much of his later years. He was a prominent figure in literary circles and Samuel Johnson said of him: ‘You will not find a man in whose conversation there is more instruction, more information, and more elegance.’ Unusually among British portraitists of his time, Ramsay was an outstanding draughtsman and he made many beautiful preliminary chalk drawings for his paintings—of hands and details of costume as well as heads. There is a large collection of these in the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh.