This portrait was commissioned in 1954 to honour thirty years of communal service. In particular for the sitter helping to counteract poverty in the Glasgow Jewish community and for his other charitable endeavors including establishing an interest-free Ex-Servicemen’s Loan Fund. The painting was presented to Sir Maurice but was hung in the Board Room of the Glasgow Jewish Board of Guardians in Thistle Street and then in Coplaw Street, who commissioned the painting. The painting passed into the care of the successor: Glasgow Jewish Welfare Board, who in turn gifted the painting to the Scottish Jewish Archives Centre. Maurice was born into a Jewish family on 8th February, 1883 in Zagar, Kovno (now Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire). When still a young boy, his parents fled persecution and reached Dundee in 1893 where Maurice attended school. In 1910 Maurice applied for naturalisation and was granted British citizenship. He was by then living in Glasgow where he remained for the rest of his life. He established a success wholesale and export whisky business. He was knighted for his services to charity.