Description

This double-portrait of the brothers Samuel and Nathaniel Buck shows the pair fashionably dressed as gentlemen, with powdered wigs, shining velvet coats, fine embroidered waistcoats, and polished buttons, the rich fabrics accentuated by the plain background and ably rendered in mezzotint by Houston. Both are engaged in their work. Nathaniel has his drawing board and pencil whilst Samuel holds one of their views.

The plate, after an original design by Joseph Highmore, was retailed as a single-sheet, and was reproduced in 1774 as the frontispiece to the first volume of Buck’s Antiquities, the later republication of the brother’s views.