Henry Maister (1730–1812)

Henry Maister of Hull was a prosperous merchant and civic leader whose Georgian townhouse on High Street, built in the 1740s, remains one of the finest surviving examples of Georgian domestic architecture in the north of England. Maister represented the prosperous provincial merchant class that formed a significant part of Dance's portrait clientele—wealthy men of commerce whose commercial success in provincial cities gave them the resources and social aspirations that portrait painting satisfied. Hull's position as a major trading port on the Humber made its merchant families natural investors in the cultural self-presentation that portraiture provided. Dance's ability to serve both metropolitan and provincial clients gave his practice its broad commercial base.

The merchant portrait balances provincial dignity with metropolitan style, Dance applying his London-trained technique to a provincial sitter with the same professional care he brought to his metropolitan commissions.