Juliana De Wolf was the only daughter of James De Wolf and Julia Lynch (Post) De Wolf of Bristol, R.I. She married Robert Livingston Cutting in New York on October 25, 1836. Cabanel was, by 1888, one of the best known academic painters in Paris.

Daly was born in New York to Irish parents who had emigrated from Galway in 1814, and was admitted to the bar in 1839. He was elected to the state assembly in 1843 and was appointed a judge of the New York City Court of Common Pleas the following year. He held the latter position for forty-one years, serving as chief justice from 1858.

Like Farmer's Bargaining (N-YHS 1858.59), Undutiful Boys, Mount's second picture for the New York art collector, Luman Reed, was painted outdoors on the Mount farm in Stony Brook, New York. The scene features four young truant gamblers who have abandoned their farm chores and are gathered in a circle "hustling coppers," or pennies, on the floor in Mount's barn. Approaching from the left, an elder farmer, who has presumably been hard at work, seems determined to punish the truant boys with the switch in his right hand. As in Farmer's Bargaining, Mount's faithful depiction of the ambiance and details of country life was no doubt enhanced by his childhood experience as a farmer boy and his long residence in a farming community. Undutiful Boys should also be seen in the context of a larger national trend to celebrate American rural life and childhood. The majority of Mount's contemporaries, including Reed, had grown up in farming communities. Moreover, the veneration of the farmer reached new heights in the Era of Jacksonian Democracy, particularly as the country began to shift from an agrarian nation to a more industrial one. For Reed, who had moved from the Hudson River town of Coxsackie to New York City in 1815, Mount's painting of rural farmers would have served as a nostalgic reminder of his origins. Reed is reported to have paid $220.00 for the picture.

Born in Jamaica, Dallas studied law in England; he came to America in 1783 and established his law practice in Philadelphia. As secretary of the treasury (1814-16, also acting secretary of war in 1815-16), he took charge of the finances of the nation, which were in a ruinous state as a result of the War of 1812. This portrait dates from the first decade of Peale's career and was probably painted in Philadelphia where both subject and artist lived.

The subject of this portrait, the son of Estelle (Cuyler) Smith and Henry Hunter Smith, a wealthy cotton factor, was born in Rome, Georgia. He moved to New York with his wife, Grace Thompson Barton, in 1903, and received permission from the superior court of Fulton County, Georgia, to assume the surname of Cuyler in 1905. From 1908 until his death, he was a member of The New-York Historical Society.

Davis was "discovered" around 1844 by William Levingston, a Poughkeepsie tailor who quit his trade to work with Davis to develop his clairvoyant powers for the cure of diseases. Davis's lectures, delivered while in a trance, were published as "Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations, and a Voice to Mankind" in 1847. Eventually, Davis progressed from mesmerism to spiritualism, as may be seen in "The Great Harmonia" (1850-52) and "The Philosophy of Spiritual Intercourse" (1856).

Gerardus Duyckinck II, the son of Gerardus and Johanna (Van Brugh) Duyckinck, was baptized in the Dutch Church in New York on March 20, 1723. He initially carried on his father's business of "Limning, Painting, Varnishing, Japanning, Gilding, Glazing, and Silvering of Looking-Glasses" near the old Slip Market in New York, and later sold spectacles, telescopes, maps, engravings and art supplies.

Darlington studied medical botany with Dr. B. S. Barton and received his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1804. Much of his life was spent in or near Chester County, Pennsylvania, and in 1826 he published "Florula Chestrica," a study of the flora of that county. This profile portrait is among the earliest known works by Eichholtz.

Daniels began his career as a journalist and newspaper publisher, and later studied law. Active in the Democratic party, he was a member of the national committee from 1896 to 1916, and played a major role in the nomination of Woodrow Wilson in 1912. Upon Wilson's election Daniels was appointed secretary of the navy, an office he held throughout Wilson's two terms and through the course of World War I. Daniels was secretary of the navy when Lockman painted his portrait.

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.