Sherlock is said to have been the son of a prize-fighter, and to have been born at Dublin. In 1759 he was a student in the St. Martin's Lane academy in London, and in that year obtained a premium from the Society of Arts. He at first studied engraving, and was a pupil of J. P. Le Bas at Paris. There he engraved a large plate of ‘The Grange,’ after Jean-Baptiste Pillement, published in 1761; he also engraved the portrait heads for Tobias Smollett's ‘History of England.’ Subsequently, Sherlock took to painting portraits on a small scale, both in oil and watercolours, and miniatures. He was a fellow of the Incorporated Society of Artists, and their director in 1774, exhibiting with them from 1764 to 1777. From 1802 to 1806 he exhibited small portraits at the Royal Academy. He also practised as a picture-cleaner, and was a skilled copyist.
