The subject was the son of Theodore and Abigail (Alsop) Dwight and a nephew of Timothy Dwight, president of Yale College (1795-1817). Upon taking up residence in Brooklyn in 1833, he taught school, worked on his father's newspaper, "The New York Daily Advertiser," and wrote articles for religious publications. Among his many books were "A New Gazeteer of the United States of America" (1833) and "The History of Connecticut" (1840). His portrait was a gift to the Society from his granddaughter.

The subject of this portrait was a pewterer in Boston.

Dodworth was famous for his 75-piece band and for the concerts he originated in Central Park. This portrait shows him in his band uniform, holding his favorite instrument and standing beside a music stand upon which is a musical score entitled "Cornet Solo, [by] H. B. Dodworth." The painting, which was purchased from the Chicago Historical Society, was exhibited by Jenkins at the National Academy of Design in 1857, presumably the year in which it was painted. The A-flat cornet that Dodworth is holding in the portrait is currently held by the Henry Ford Museum.

The subject was the daughter of John and Rachel (Meyer) Post Durand and the sister of Asher B. Durand. She later became the wife of Daniel Beach. The portrait was a gift to the Society from the subject's niece.

New York illustrator, portrait painter, and political cartoonist David Edward Cronin served in the Union Army as a staff artist for Harper's Weekly and came face to face with the grim realities of slave life. Cronin's painting of a group of desperate fugitives makes reference to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, a controversial law that empowered federal commissioners to pursue fugitive slaves in all states and return them to their owners. The painting was likely inspired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, "The Slave in the Dismal Swamp," first published in 1842: In dark fens of the Dismal Swamp The hunted Negro lay; He saw the fire of the midnight camp, And heard at times a horse's tramp And a bloodhound's distant bay. Where hardly a human foot could pass, Or a human heart would dare, On the quaking turf of the green morass He crouched in the rank and tangled grass, Like a wild beast in his lair. A poor old slave, infirm and lame; Great scars deformed his face; On his forehead he bore the brand of shame, And the rags, that hid his mangled frame…

Maria Ackerman was married to Matthias Bloodgood on March 25, 1828.

Christiana Dally was the mother-in-law of Charles Willson Peale and the second wife of William De Peyster, Jr., whom she married in 1773. Peale also painted his father-in-law in 1798. This was the second pair of portraits he had painted for his in-laws, the earlier ones dating from 1792.