Portrait of Mr. Edward Pryce (b.1723), Gunley and Mrs. Frances Pryce, neé Egerton, Trelydan, half-length, with a landscape beyond

Joseph Highmore was encouraged by his family to train as a lawyer and took a clerkship at the age of 17, while still attending Godfrey Kneller's Drawing Academy. By 1715 Highmore abandoned his law career, and began work as a portrait painter in London. From 1720 he attended the St. Martin's Lane Academy, where he was able to study contemporary French styles in art and design, particularly that of Gravelot. He also attended William Cheselden's anatomy lectures and contributed designs to that author's Anatomy of the Human Body (1722). Highmore traveled to the Low Countries to study works by Rubens and van Dyck, and later went to Paris, where he saw the art collections at Versailles, the Palais du Luxembourg and the Louvre. In the following years he secured important commissions from the Royal family, such as Queen Caroline of Ansbach (circa 1735; Royal Collection, Hampton Court). Although little is known of the sitters in the present painting, it seems likely that it was was commissioned on the occasion of their marriage in 1751.