Stuart's portrayal of Francis Malbone Jr. (1759–1809) and his brother Saunders (1764–1836), sons of a prominent Newport distiller and trader, is a veritable collage of passages from portraits by John Singleton Copley. Stuart appropriated Copley's vocabulary of props and gestures—note the glossy hardwood tabletop and the eerie shadowing around their fingers—and mimicked his tendency to balance plasticity of form with severe outline.