Thomas Russell (1741-1786) ordered two pairs of portraits of himself and his wife, nee Ann Thomas (b. 1751), during a trip to Philadelphia from Cecil County, Maryland around 1784. At that time, Peale, his patron's exact contemporary, dominated the local portrait market. Because the Russells enjoyed greater financial and material prosperity in the early 1780s than ever before, they probably intended these commissions to mark their recently- achieved status.