This miniature of Washington was painted from an engraving by Laugier after a portrait painted by Gilbert Stuart. The artist seems to have come to America only about 1845, so the miniature was probably executed in her native France.

This miniature was probably painted from one of the engravings after Vanderlyn's 1802 portrait of Burr.

The subject was born in Malaga, Spain, to noble but inpoverished parents. He joined the army and was sent to Louisiana as a colonel but was appointed governor of the province in 1776. Galvez remained active in colonial affairs, becoming viceroy of New Spain in 1785. The city of Galveston, Texas, is named after him.

Jesse Hawley was the author of essays on canal navigation signed "Hercules" and published in the Genesee "Messenger" in 1807-08. He was a member of the New York Assembly from Genesee County in 1820-21 and on October 26, 1825, was one of the speakers at Buffalo at the festivities officially opening the Erie Canal.

The subject was the wife of John Whitmore, the sister of the artist, and the grandmother of the donors.

Clarissa Moody was the daughter of Medad Moody of Canton, New York. She met her husband, whose father had long been a friend of her father, while he was boarding at the Moody residence. The couple was married on September 11, 1833.

Léontine Arnaud, the mother of Peter Marié, was the youngest daughter of General Joseph Louis Arnaud, a planter of Santo Domingo, and Mary (Nicholson) Arnaud. After her father's assassination during a native uprising, her mother brought the subject and her two sisters to New York. She married Jean Baptiste Marié in 1811.

This miniature is the only recorded signed miniature by this artist. He worked in Charleston, Richmond, Va., Baltimore and New York City (1831).