Cole painted this and its pendant Autumn Twilight, View of Conway Peak, New Hampshire (1858.42) while he was in the early stages of creating his monumental five-painting series The Course of Empire (1858.1-5). That series traces the rise and fall of an imaginary civilization, and in this pair Cole prefigured the larger themes of the series, but he placed them in an unmistakably American context. The critic and painter William Dunlap recalled visiting Cole in his studio on November 15, 1834 and seeing "2 small jewells [sic] & 2 larger paintings being the first two of the sett [sic] of 5 for Luman Reed Esq." The two large works were The Savage State (1858.1) and The Arcadian or Pastoral State (1858.2), which begin The Course of Empire series. The two "small jewells" [sic] were these seasonal twilight scenes, which closely parallel the themes of their larger counterparts. Cole clearly intended them as a pair: they are the same size and retain their identical original frames. Cole exhibited them together at the National Academy of Design in 1834, perhaps as a preview of his series. By contrast, Summer Twilight glows with a benign sunset. An ax-hewn stump at lower left signifies the coming of European "civilization," but here man and nature exist in pastoral harmony. The small homestead at the left and the log cabin on the shore at the right nestle comfortably into the scene, dwarfed by the magnificent expanse of water, mountains and sky. Sheep and cows graze, and the lone woodsman at the lower center pauses from his labors to appreciate the majesty of the sunset. This idealized vision is perfectly in keeping with Cole's The Arcadian or Pastoral State, which exalts the fleeting moment when man is in harmony with nature and has not yet overcome it - a moment that Cole saw passing from the American scene.

James was for many years president of the Curtiss Southwestern Company and a director of the Phelps Dodge Corporation. He was chairman of the board of the Western Pacific Railroad Company and on the board of other railroad companies and mining concerns. He belonged to the American Geographical Society, the New York Zoological Society, and was a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

James was for many years president of the Curtiss Southwestern Company and a director of the Phelps Dodge Corporation. He was chairman of the board of the Western Pacific Railroad Company and on the board of other railroad companies and mining concerns. He belonged to the American Geographical Society, the New York Zoological Society, and was a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The style of painting suggests that this could have been done in China.

This is one of the six portraits of his eldest children James Beekman (1732-1807) commissioned from John Durand in the 1760s. It was unusual in colonial portraiture to depict a young girl with books. Here, at age six, Jane Beekman, the eldest daughter of James and Jane Beekman, holds an open Latin volume of Erasmus's selected works. This text, as well as the other books on the table behind her, speaks to the classical education the Beekman children received and to the privilege that supported such learning . It also reflects the family's Dutch and French Huguenot heritage, as both cultures placed a strong emphasis on education. Upon reaching adulthood, Jane married Stephen Van Cortlandt, scion of a distinguished Dutch family. John Durand (1731-1805) first began working in Virginia in 1765, but by 1766 had moved to New York City to paint portraits of the Beekman children for their father James Beekman. Durand’s background and training are unknown, but his use of rococo colors, interest in historical paintings and reference to his name in French lead art historians to believe he was born or trained in France. He left New York in 1768 as one of the city’s most celebrated painters and returned to Virginia, where he lived for most of the remainder of his life. The style of his late work executed in Virginia changed notably, never garnering him the critical acclaim and popular response his early New York portraits had received. All six portraits of the Beekman children bear elaborately carved and gilded frames by the New York carver James Strachan, which are superior examples of rococo ornament, a style all the rage among the American colonial elite during the mid-eighteenth century. The children's portraits, as well as those of James Beekman and his wife, remained in the Beekman family until presented to the New-York Historical Society through the Beekman Family Association.

This is a copy of the 1875 portrait by Le Clear, which Satterlee probably painted at the commission of another member of the family, perhaps one of the donors.

This and its companion portrait of Adriaan Bancker (1934.1) descended to a son, Abraham, then to the latter's sister, Anna Elizabeth, from whom they came into possession of the de Groot family and ultimately the donor.