Breda established a London studio in St James's Street and quickly became a popular portraitist with "learned men and literati" and "many lovely ladies". Among those he painted portraits of while in London were the abolitionists Thomas Clarkson, James Ramsay and Charles Bernhard Waldström, as well as engineers James Watt and Matthew Boulton. These last two were members of the Lunar Society and were painted by Breda on a visit to Birmingham in 1792. The portrait of Watt is in the National Portrait Gallery, London and that of Boulton in Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. Others associated with the Lunar Society whose portraits Breda painted included the botanist and scientist William Withering and Mary Priestley, wife of chemist and theologian Joseph Priestley.
