D'Oyly first arrived in India in 1797 and spent his first years in Calcutta. Later he became Collector in Dacca from 1808-1818 and was both a friend and a pupil of George Chinnery. He then took up the post of Opium Agent in Patna which, due to the ease of the job, enabled him to devote a great deal of time to his art. In 1827 he established one of the earliest lithographic presses in India. He encouraged both the artistic activities of Company painters and his friends and would then reproduce these works in a periodical called Behar Amateur Lithographic Scrap Book which he printed and published himself. D'Oyly also published, among many other illustrated books, Tom Raw the Griffin, 1828.

Mr Thomas Graham was a senior Member of the Board of Revenue in Calcutta and retired in 1808. It seems likely that D'Oyly and Graham met in Calcutta and that this is where the ball was held