The subject, a noted muralist and illustrator, was born in San Francisco, Calif., and studied art in Paris. In 1897 he established his studio in New York, where he commenced illustrating popular magazines and books, including Theodore Roosevelt's "Life of Oliver Cromwell." A bronze version of this bust is in the collection of the Institute of Arts & Letters, in New York City.

Casper Hennecke & Co. catalog No. 5 1887 is part of the Landauer Collection, housed in the library

A distinguished American diplomat and financier, Gallatin was born and educated in Switzerland but came to the Colonies during the struggle for independence. After the war he acquired a large tract of land in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, and became one of the prominent citizens of the area, serving in the state legislature (1790-92). He was elected to Congress in 1792 but was declared ineligible after serving for a year; he was re-elected later and served from 1795-1801, achieving a reputation as an astute political leader and financier. Under Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison he was secretary of the treasury for twelve years, and thereafter served as United States minister to France (1816-23) and England (1826-27). In the late 1830s Gallatin was president of the National (later Gallatin) Bank. His wide interests are further demonstrated by his founding of the Ethnological Society in 1842 and his service as president of The New-York Historical Society from 1843 to 1849. His Reminiscences were published in 1841. This is a small version of the large statue Fraser executed for the U.S. Treasury Building in Washington. The Society also owns a number of portraits of members of the Gallatin family who neither came to America nor were painted by American artists.

The original model for the heroic size statue in front of the School of Journalism, Columbia University, New York City.

Hyde, founder of Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States, was born at Catskill, New York. This statuette, a gift to N-YHS from his son, was the model for a life-size statue by Ward which was set up in the rotunda of the Equitable Life Assurance Company Building.

Rogers' famed Civil War subjects explored a range of experiences of the conflict, from humorous scenes of camp life, to interactions between soldiers and civilians, to soldiers under the duress of battle. In this singular group, the artist showed how the terrors of war affected civilians. Rogers was well aware of the guerilla violence that threatened those living in the contested border states, where inhabitants were subject to sudden attacks by "bushwhackers," as they were called. Here he depicted two young women of the region, who were, in his words, "the only ones left to guard their home, as the men are all in one army or the other . . . suddenly called up by an alarm at midnight." Roused from a sound sleep, the women are in dishabille, the elder with her strap falling off her shoulder, the younger apparently wrapped in her bedclothes. Both stare intently at the same point in the distance, trying to discern the unknown threat. The younger girl crouches fearfully behind the elder, whose gaze shows her own trepidation, but she cocks the revolver in her hand, ready to face the danger. In 1868, three years after the group was introduced, the New York Evening Mail connected The Home Guard with a work that Rogers released at the same time, The Bushwhacker: The Wife's Appeal for Peace (1949.240). The writer compared the dreaded midnight raid with "the other side of the cloud," the man who would carry out the attack, who in The Bushwhacker is being persuaded by his wife to relent. There is no clear indication that Rogers intended the two groups to function as a pair, but they create a compelling circuit of aggressor and victim, both poised for the attack and perhaps both equally terrified by its possible consequences for themselves and their loved ones, but neither certain whether it will be carried out. Rogers finished this work in a hurry in the spring of 1865 as he prepared for his wedding. His fiancée, Harriet Moore Francis, may have inspired his portrayal of the older female in The Home Guard; Rogers admired his bride for her strength, independence, and resourcefulness, and the women he depicted in his later work would share those characteristics. Though Rogers was not satisfied with The Home Guard, it received some positive critical notices: it was called "one of the most spirited" of his works to that point, "almost startling in its strength."

This object was once part of the folk art collection of Elie Nadelman (1882-1946), the avant-garde sculptor. From 1924 to 1934, Nadelman's collection was displayed in his Museum of Folk Arts, located in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. The Historical Society purchased Nadelman's entire collection in 1937.