Victor Thomas Trumper was born at Darlinghurst, New South Wales, in 1877, the same year as Clem Hill, and died at the place of his birth in 1915, a victim of Bright's disease. He is one of the few batsmen to whom the word "brilliant" has been unhesitatingly applied. Neville Cardus in his autobiography (p. 182) describes him as "the most gallant and handsome batsman of them all ... his swift and apparent daring, the audacity of his prancing footwork, were governed by a technique of rare accuracy and range."

Beldam's photograph of Trumper is famed for its impression of the ease and suppleness of his stroke play, and the Chevallier Tayler portrait actually published in The Empire's Cricketers, though displaying a different stroke, is very much like it in character. However, in this unused preliminary study Chevallier Tayler concentrates on the batsman's to some extent rugged face, particularly the square chin, and extraordinarily sharp eyes which are thrown into shade by the peaked cap; attention is given, too, to the famous "Trumper grip"; while there is still a hint of that same suppleness and ease in the batsman's crouching stance.