Born into a famiy of modest clergymen, Hancock became one of the richest and most powerful men in Boston. He commissioned this portrait and one of Lydia Henchman on the occasion of their marriage. According to Smibert's notebooks, these relatively small, three-quarter views were the cheapest portraits the artist offered, suggesting that at this point Hancock was still in the process of building his fortune. When Thomas died, his nephew John Hancock became the beneficiary of his estate and one of the wealthiest Bostonians of his generation. John Singleton Copley's portrait of John Hancock is on view in the Colonial Boston gallery, on the level above.