Print of William Herschel by Edward Scriven adter John Russell. Edward Scriven engraved more than one copy of this image of an original portrait by John Russell. This one was produced for the publisher William Mackenzie.

The original portrait was produced by John Russell (1745-1806) in 1794 and shows William, then aged 56, holding a sketch of 'The Georgian Planet with its Satellites'. The Georgian planet is the name Herschel gave to Uranus the planet he discovered in 1781 naming it after King George III, a common tactic used by those looking for patronage (Galileo set the precident when he named the 4 moons of Jupiter he discovered with his telescope the 'Medician planets').

While William and many in England called Uranus Georgium Sidus, in France they called it Herschel. The name Uranus was first suggested by German astronomer, Johann Elert Bode.

The original Russell portrait is currently in a private collection, a copy however exists in the National Maritime Museum collections (BHC2764).

Prints were often paintings, frequently long after the painting had been completed and in some cases long after they were exhibited. These prints would then be bought either individually or as part of a subscription series and added to a private print collection. Print collections were popular particularly with upper middle class families in the 19th century and can often be seen as self consciously biographical, made up of people, places and ideas to which they felt a particular connection, or to which they would like to have been seen to have a particular connection.