Dalton's Royal Photographic Gallery was one of the names for the studio run by Edwin Dalton from 1858 until the mid 1860s. A painter, photographer and lithographer, Dalton had spent some time in America before coming to Australia in the 1850s, possibly in search of gold. He set up as portrait painter in Melbourne and by 1855 was in Sydney, specialising in works in pastel. In Sydney, Dalton attracted commissions from the city's most prominent families, his likenesses deemed so life-like as to be 'almost laughable'. In December 1858 he advertised his 'invention', the crayotype or crayongraph, a photograph coloured over with pastel. By June 1863 demand for his portraits far exceeded his capacity to supply them; by 1865 he had sold his business, which continued to operate under his name, and returned to England.
