The original Pickersgill portrait of John FW Herschel is held at John's old college, St John's College, Cambridge. The original portrait appears to have been commissioned by Roderick Impey Murchison (1792-1871, British geologist and naval officer) who writes to John in 1832 that he would like to have the portrait painted by Pickersgill before John FW leaves for the Cape of Good Hope [Royal Society Herschel manuscripts RS:HS 12.386], to be given to St John's College. It was generally regarded at the time to be a very good likeness.

This engraving by William Ward is dated 1835. Other Pickersgill portraits were engraved by Ward suggesting they had an established working relationship. Generally this is how engravings would be produced, an artist would have one or many engravers that he or she would work with on a regular basis and would commission engravings of their work for mass distribution partly for the income but mostly for self promotion. The person commissioning or even sitting for the portrait would have no actual rights over the image (though good manners dictated they were generally consulted before copies were made) and if they wanted copies would generally go through the artist rather than going straight to an engraver.