Vollmering's image of Sing Sing with its low horizon and overcast sky includes the industrial waterfront. The German-born artist, trained in Amsterdam, arrived in New York in 1847 to begin a landscape career in the United States. The view looks north from the hillside above Sing Sing Prison, the cluster of buildings at the river's edge; Croton Point and the Hudson Highlands are visible in the distance. The prison, long a stop on the Hudson's picturesque touring itinerary, had been established in 1824 to provide the nearby marble quarries with convict labor. Residents renamed their community Ossining in 1901.

Helen Turner was one of a group of artists who built and occupied summer homes and studios at Cragsmoor, NY, a village on the plateau top of the Shawangunk Mts. Other artists who summered there include Edward Gay, Edward Lamson Henry, Frederick Dellenbaugh, Charles Courtenay Curran. As such, the depiction of a NYC artist's summer studio interior is possibly unique and definitely of interest.

The son of Samuel Verplanck Hoffman, the subject was born in New York and educated at Rutgers and Harvard. He became an Episcopal priest and from 1879 to 1902 was dean of the General Theological Seminary. Hoffman, who was generous with the immense wealth left to him by his father, also inherited his father's board secular interests. He was a fellow of the American Museum of Natural History and 1901 to 1902 was president of N-YHS.

A native of Philadelphia, Dr. Hobart was an Episcopal priest and rector of Trinity Church in New York for fourteen years.

Dionysia McLaughlin of Scarboro, Maine, married Wiggins Hill of Bangor, Maine, in 1813. Her portrait was a gift to the Society from her great-grandchildren.

In its obituary of August 18, 1868, the Bangor (Maine) "Daily Whig and Courier" described the subject as "one of the most venerable and respected citizens of Bangor." In 1835 he was a member of the common council of Bangor, representing the second ward. His portrait was a gift to the Society from his great-grandchildren.

Mary Elizabeth Moore, author and poet, was born in Malden, Mass., the daughter of Joseph Moore. She grew up in Boston and in 1842 was married to James L. Hewitt of New York, a music publisher. After his death she married Russell Stebbins in 1854. Her published works include "Songs of Our Land" (1845), "Heroines of History" (1856), and "Poems, Sacred, Passionate and Legendary" (1864). The subject was a good friend of the artist's wife, the poet Frances Osgood.

This portrait, which was long in the possession of Philip Aylett and his wife, Elizabeth (Henry) Aylett, the daughter of the subject, is known as the "Aylett Portrait." It represents Patrick Henry at a younger age than any of the other known portraits of him, and, according to a tradition traceable to George Morgan, one of Henry's biographers, was not executed from life.

Depew graduated from Yale University, studied law, and began his practice in Peekskill, New York. In 1866 he was chosen by Commodore Vanderbilt as attorney for the Hudson River and Harlem Railroads, and by 1882 he had risen to the office of vice-president of the newly consolidated New York Central and Hudson River Line; three years later he became president. In 1899 and 1905 he was elected to the U.S. Senate. This posthumous portrait was painted from either a photograph or another painting.