Master Benjamin Smith (1783–1860), and His Younger Brother

Opie's 1796 double portrait of Master Benjamin Smith and his younger brother at the Glasgow Museums Resource Centre is an example of the child double portrait, a popular format in Georgian England that served both family documentary and social display functions. Benjamin Smith, born 1783, was thirteen at the time of painting, his brother younger — the age differential between two brothers in a single portrait creates natural compositional variety and allows for contrasts of size, character, and bearing. Double portraits of children were valued by families as records of family bonds and as demonstrations of prosperity sufficient to commission a leading painter. Opie's handling of children carries a freshness and directness that distinguishes his child portraits from the more sentimentalised treatments common in the period.

A double portrait requires careful management of two centres of attention — Opie would have arranged the boys in a natural grouping that suggests relationship while allowing each face its own individual characterisation. The lighting would unify the composition while picking out the different expressions of the two sitters. The contrast between older and younger brother provides natural compositional variation.