The portraits depict William Hall’s daughter Mary Ann Hall Lewis (1811–1852) and her husband Richard Lewis (1804–c. 1889). Little is known of Mary Ann Hall Lewis despite her birth and death years, and the place of her burial in the Hackettstown, New Jersey Union Cemetery. Interestingly, her stone is in the Rawlings’ family plot, that of her mother, Mary Ann Rawlings Hall.

The portraits depict William Hall’s daughter Mary Ann Hall Lewis (1811–1852) and her husband Richard Lewis (1804–c. 1889). William Hall was shipmaster of the Warren and a member of the Freemasons. Little is known of Richard Lewis, although he was an Ohio resident by 1880 according to census records.

John Singer Sargent painted this portrait of Mary Barrett Wendell (1832-1912) in May 1888, at the close of his first professional foray on American soil. The sitter was a daughter of the Boston merchant Nathaniel Augustus Barrett and the former Sally Dorr. Both families had deep colonial roots and the Dorrs had made a fortune in the fur trade. She married Jacob Wendell in Boston in 1854, approximately a year after he had moved from his native Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and joined the firm of J.C. Howe & Co., agents in woollen sales.

A wealthy St. Louis socialite, Nellie McCormick was the first wife of illustrator and portraitist James Montgomery Flagg. Nellie played a vital role in Flagg's early career, supporting him financially and introducing him to high society. Flagg painted many portraits of his beautiful wife, creating his signature "Flagg girls" after her image. He offered this description of Nellie and his ideal of female beauty: "She should be tall, with wide shoulders; a face as symmetrical as a Greek vase; thick, wavy hair…thick, long lashes; straight nose tipped up a bit at the end; her eyes so full of feminine allure that your heart skips a beat when you gaze into them. But physical beauty is not enough. To be really beautiful a woman must have certain fundamental qualities of spirit-serenity, courage, humor and passion."

The subject was the son of Isaac John Greenwood I, and Mary (McKay) Greenwood, his second wife. After graduating from Columbia College in 1853 and receiving an A.M. degree in 1857, he became a merchant, but his interests soon turned to chemistry and medicine, which he then began to study. He was a member of numerous institutions, among them N-YHS. His portrait was a gift to the Society from his daughter.

This portrait, which depicts the subject at the age of three, was painted in Paris by one of the most celebrated French academic painters of the late nineteenth century. By 1873 he accepted portrait commissions only out of personal regard for the sitter or his family.

Mary Louise Van Beuren was the daughter of Michael Murray Van Beuren and Mary Spingler (Fonerden) Van Beuren. She married John William Davis (1828-1887) on November 11, 1851. This portrait was a gift to the Society from her grandson.

nee Rosalie Jacobs