On May 13, 1818, a notice in the Philadelphia Gazette and Daily Advertiser solicited proposals for a marble structure imitating "Grecian Architecture, in its simplest and least expensive form." William Strickland responded with a design modeled on the restoration drawings of the Parthenon in Greece. Here, a self-assured Strickland, drawing board in hand, sits before the façade of his successful commission, the Second Bank of the United States. Juxtaposing painterly and linear styles, John Neagle renders Strickland with loose, unfussy brushwork and portrays the bank’s cool Doric façade in crisp, thin outlines. He links both images through the placement of the drawing board, which almost mirrors, on a smaller scale, the geometric form of the bank in the background. Although Neagle worked for a time in New York and in early life traveled through the South as an itinerant painter, his career is identified with Philadelphia. His portraits won him praise as a brilliant colorist, and are distinguished by a perceptive, forthright delineation of character.