Rogers sometimes created sculptures that formed natural pairs or series, such as his three Rip Van Winkle groups of 1871 and the large-scale lawn sculptures Hide and Seek and Hide and Seek: Whoop! which he introduced a few years later. However, The Photographer and The Sitter are the only related sculptures that were sold as a pair and were compositionally dependent on one another to complete their shared narrative. The pair depicts a young woman (modeled after Roger's wife, Hattie) having her son's photograph taken. The toddler (modeled after the artist's two-year-old son, David) sits on a small table in the arms of his fashionably dressed mother. Across from him the photographer leans over his apparatus and dangles a jumping jack to focus the boy's attention. Though the two sculptures complement and complete one another, Rogers gave each an individual character. The Sitter is elaborately decorated with an eye to the sensibilities of its female and youthful subjects; the surface is embellished with varied textures, such as the lace and tasseled trim of the woman's dress, and the pedestal of the table features small concavities surrounded by greenery and inhabited by woodland creatures. In contrast, The Photographer is sparer and more masculine. The man's costume, though dapper, lacks fine texture, and the pedestal of his apparatus is decorated with simple geometric patterns. Rogers chose an experience familiar to most Americans of the period. Having one's photograph taken was a relatively inexpensive and common practice compared to having one's portrait painted. Rogers himself had had his photograph taken several times by this point, both as a private person with members of his family and as the celebrity artist he had become. The sculptural medium points up another aspect of the photographic process in the late nineteenth century: Rogers' figures are frozen in motion, and contemporary viewers would have had vivid memories of how hard it is to sit still for a photograph, since cameras were not yet able to take snapshots and required a long exposure time. Photography studios were outfitted with braces that kept the sitters firmly (if perhaps painfully) in position, but keeping a child still represented a particular challenge. Rogers himself faced the same difficulty in having his son sit quietly when posing for this sculpture of a boy who is in turn having his photo taken; perhaps Rogers resorted to photos of his son as an aid. Though the two works are now usually exhibited in close proximity to one another, they were originally intended to be placed far apart, on the opposite ends of a mantel. In this way, Rogers expanded the space covered by his narrative, but he left it up to the owner to decide just how far apart the two sculptures would sit. Rogers created a witty play between his groups, praised for their wealth of realistic detail and their naturalness, and the objects that surrounded them in a parlor setting. In their intended positions across a mantel, the mother and photographer would gaze intently at one another, trying to judge the right moment for the picture to be taken, and the boy would look at the camera, anticipating the bird that was rigged to pop out for his amusement just as the shutter clicked. These gazes would travel down a mantel that might be filled with candlesticks, vases, or other decorative objects that would seem gigantic by comparison. By allowing his groups to communicate to one another across a room, Rogers opened the space that they inhabited to include other objects, thereby pointing out their status as works of art at a time when he was most highly praised for his sculptures' fidelity to life.

The Referee typifies the good-natured humor and technical sophistication of Rogers' late oeuvre. Two young women are disputing which one is the taller, and they have recruited an older man to settle their argument, who, with hat and umbrella in hand, appears to be leaving. He stops to adjudicate, but his attempt is impeded by the women's elaborate hairstyles and the fact that one of them is standing on tiptoes to exaggerate her height, her mischievous expression betraying her. As Rogers did in many of his other works, he made the joke subtle but clear enough to the careful and observant viewer. However, in this case, his humor had a private element as well: the women were modeled after Rogers' sisters Frances and Elizabeth (Fannie and Bessie) who were identical twins, and therefore exactly the same height. The artist chose a relatively simple composition, placing the two rivals back to back with the "referee" behind them. However, he showed his skills as a mature artist by adding visual interest. Rogers Groups usually included sufficient detail to merit viewing from all sides, but the artist clearly indicated the front view of the sculpture by placing the title on the base. In this case, the title does not orient the viewer to the expected straightforward view of the two young women. Rather, it is at a forty-five-degree angle, offering a three-quarter view of one of them and a one-quarter view of the one standing on her toes. In this way, Rogers playfully half conceals her ploy and invites closer examination. In addition, Rogers clothed his figures not in contemporary clothing according to his usual practice, but in eighteenth-century dress, as he was careful to note in his sales catalogue. It is not clear why Rogers chose period attire. He may have been moved by new interest in the eighteenth century inspired by the national centennial celebrations four years before in 1876, or he may have enjoyed depicting the elaborate costumes in his theatrical groups from the previous few years and wanted extend his interest to genre subjects, as he had in Private Theatricals: Last Moments behind the Scenes of 1878 (1929.91). Whatever the reason, contemporary writers noted the costumes with interest. The Kentucky publication Home and Farm lauded Rogers' talents as a couturier, lightheartedly comparing him to a famed Parisian dressmaker: "We are convinced by these representations that Worth lost a formidable competitor, and the world a genuine modiste, when Destiny made a sculptor of Mr. Rogers."

The son of a German immigrant grocer of New York, John Wakefield Francis graduated from Columbia College in 1809 and went on to distinguish himself as a doctor, teacher, and author. He was librarian of The New-York Historical Society from 1812 tp 1818 and its corresponding secretary in 1817-18. This portrait was a gift to the Society from his son.

This bronze served as the master model for the plasters that Rogers sold to a broad audience of middle-class Americans. This group represents an amusing scene of child life that Rogers' sales catalogues described in detail: "two children wrapped in their parents' clothes, as mother and doctor, are playing that a younger one is sick, and his mother has wrapped him in a blanket, and soaked his feet, before she called the doctor; but now he has come, with his bottle of medicine, and is examining the patient." The children are irresistible in their oversize garments, and the charm of the scene is enhanced by the earnest expressions of the "mother" and "doctor" as they discuss the bemused "patient." The group was a popular success and became a familiar decoration in doctors' waiting rooms. Rogers did not mention in his sales catalogue that the children were his own: Johnny, age six, Katie age four, and Charlie, two years old. This was the first time that Rogers had used his children as models. In portraying his children enjoying an innocent amusement, Rogers universalized the joys of his own family life, and after this point the sculptor's work took an autobiographical turn. He derived more and more of his subjects from the lives of his family and their neighbors, and he used them as models with growing frequency. For this personal subject, he chose an equally intimate scale; the plaster measures little more than fourteen inches high, in contrast to the approximately twenty-two-inch height of his groups over the past several years. Perhaps in keeping with the humble domesticity of the scene, he also departed from his usual verticality to employ a horizontal composition that conveys a sense of the figures' small size. Though Rogers' sales catalogues did not identify his models, he made certain that newspapers did. Most notices of the new group pointed out that the children were his, adding that this would no doubt add to the sculpture's popularity. By the early 1870s Rogers was a genuine celebrity; given his status as a well-known and beloved artist, his admirers would be interested in a behind-the-scenes glimpse of his personal life and his family, just as the fascination with children of celebrities enjoys renewed popularity in the twenty-first century.

This bronze served as the master model for the plasters that Rogers sold to a broad audience of middle-class Americans. Rogers contemplated the plays of Shakespeare as a potential subject from the earliest years of his professional career. In 1861 he wrote of his plans for a series, and he assayed a handful of such themes into 1862, including one titled The Merchant of Venice, which he showed at the National Academy of Design (to his dismay, it went unnoticed). No examples of these early groups survive. The Bard did not resurface in Rogers' work until almost twenty years later. The artist's skills and ambition had grown considerably, and "Ha! I Like Not That" was the third Shakespearean group of his mature career, after "Is It So Nominated in the Bond?" from The Merchant of Venice (1936.659, 1926.37) and The Wrestlers (1936.645, 1926.37) from As You Like It. Rogers' latest Shakespearean work was considered a companion to "Is It So Nominated in the Bond?" which was similar in size and format. The pair embraced two of the playwright's best-known works, one classified as a comedy and the other as a tragedy. Where the scene from The Merchant of Venice depicts the tense moments before the villainous Shylock is foiled and all is happily resolved, Rogers chose a scene from Othello that sets in motion events that lead to murder. Rogers capitalized on the play's success and heightened his sculpture's popular appeal by modeling the characters after actors famous for their performances in the play. The acclaimed American performer Edwin Booth posed for Iago, and the Italian Tommaso Salvini was said to have posed for Othello. Rogers ordinarily attempted to convey an entire narrative within each sculpture, but in these groups he presented a small slice of a much larger narrative, and his concern for intelligibility is evident in the extra aids that he provided. Though most middle-class late-nineteenth-century Americans were familiar with the story, Rogers took care to situate the viewer in the action of the play. As was the case with his other Shakespearean subjects, his sales catalogue included an unusually long and elaborate explanation of the moment depicted. The title is a key line from that scene, and the base of the group, normally reserved for the title alone, also bears the names of the characters. In this vignette from act 3, scene 3, Desdemona and Cassio are conferring in the garden. On Iago's advice, Cassio is entreating her to help restore him to her husband Othello's good graces. Othello and Iago are walking together in the garden, and, when Iago sees his commander's wife with his rival, he exclaims his titular line in an attempt to arouse Othello's suspicions about their relationship. The climactic moment when Othello kills his wife in a rage, thinking her unfaithful, would have made a grisly subject for middle-class parlors, so Rogers showed what a contemporary writer called the "keystone of the tragedy," knowing that his viewers were aware of the events that followed. The action takes place in a squared-off stagelike space. As in a theater production, the garden is suggested by a few minimal props: the grassy surface of the base and the vase placed on an elaborate pedestal that separates Iago and Othello from Desdemona and the departing Cassio. Rogers' mastery of costume and detail is on display, particularly in Othello's exotic cloak, sword, and cap and Desdemona's richly decorated dress. The artist created a dynamic composition by placing the figures at different heights and in a variety of poses: Othello harks to Iago's words as he gazes across at the others; Cassio is bowing in gratitude, but his posture might be misinterpreted for affection; and Desdemona is pulling away from him, moving toward her husband.

Rogers' later oeuvre includes a number of scenes from popular plays of his day. Among his first successes in this arena were three 1871 vignettes from the popular production of Washington Irving's tale "Rip Van Winkle," starring the famed comic actor Joseph Jefferson. In 1888 a revival of Robert Sheridan's perennial favorite The Rivals was staged in New York with Jefferson in the starring role as Bob Acres. Nearly twenty years after the Rip series, Rogers turned to Jefferson again as a model. The Irish playwright Robert Sheridan wrote his comedy of manners The Rivals in 1775, and it became a standard of English and American repertoire throughout the nineteenth century; even before that, it is said that The Rivals was George Washington's favorite play. The complicated plot involves multiple suitors vying for the same woman, and the action climaxes in a duel between Bob and the suitor known as Beverly. Cowardly Bob has asked a friend to represent him as a fierce opponent, hoping to frighten his challenger into withdrawing. He directs his friend to say that he is known as "Fighting Bob." Rogers depicts the moment when Bob appears for the duel, terrified, only to find that "Beverly" is a friend who has been wooing under an assumed name. Rogers' correspondence shows how collaboratively he worked with Jefferson. The actor wrote to Rogers in December 1888 saying that he could sit for the sculptor in January. Apparently, Rogers also used a photograph of Jefferson in character though not in costume as well as a commercial photograph of him in costume in the same pose as the final sculpture. When Jefferson saw the clay model, he wrote that though the work was admirable, "it looks like a man who would fight instead of a man who would rather not. This renders the figure less humorous than if he was trying to look bold." Rogers must have made adjustments based on Jefferson's comments, since the actor later pronounced the final version a success. At a height of thirty-four inches, Fighting Bob is Rogers' tallest indoor group. Rather than presenting a scene with several characters as he had done with his other theatrical groups, the artist concentrated on a monumental single figure of the celebrity actor. "Bob" leans back in hesitation with his eyes opened wide, revealing the terror beneath his bluster. He holds two pistols instead of one in a further show of bravado, which is at odds with his dandified eighteenth-century costume: the lace cascading from his sleeves and the bows on his boots make a comic contrast to his earlier threats. Rogers' depiction struck a chord with viewers; one Chicago writer commented that "the expression of absolute terror in 'Bob's' countenance is true to Jefferson's impersonation of the character," and another marveled, "It is Jefferson to the life, pistols and all. You can hear him say [a line from the play], "Tell them I generally kill a gentleman before breakfast."

The bust was made when General McClellan was at the height of his fame as a military commander. It was owned by Robert Todd Lincoln who, the night before he left Harvard to join General Grant's army in Virigina, gave it to Charles Stebbins Fairchild of Cazenovia, New York, the husband of the donor.