This portrait bust was a gift to the Society from the subject's grandson.

David was one of John Roger's children

Rogers' famed Civil War groups often took a lighthearted view of the realities of war, offering comfort in reminders of everyday pleasures, humor, and camaraderie. The artist himself described Country Postoffice: News from the Army as follows: "An old shoemaker, who is postmaster also, has just opened the mailbag from the army. He is taking a provokingly long time to study out the address of a letter which a young lady by his side recognizes at once as for her." The cobbler peers through his glasses with furrowed brow and pursed lips; contemporary critics could not agree if he was having difficulty reading the address or if he might be teasing the young lady reaching eagerly for the letter; one critic discerned a "waggish look on his face." Rogers took delight in setting the scene with the many objects on the cobbler's untidy bench and the floor below, where tools, shoes, and letters mingle in comical profusion. Rogers' sculpture was an attempt to ameliorate very real anxieties that civilians felt for their loved ones in combat. In a period when letters were the only way of knowing that a soldier was alive and well, such news was precious and awaited with great anticipation. One critic noticed that Rogers did not specify whether the girl impatient for her letter was a lover, sister, or wife of a soldier. In this way he allowed the viewer to interpret the subject in terms of his or her own situation and perhaps draw some reassurance from the quotidian humor of the scene. Viewers understood and appreciated Rogers' attempts to allay their fears, but they were also aware of the larger concerns that his groups embraced: the Boston Daily Evening Transcript called this and his other Civil War sculptures "symbols packed with far reaching and penetrating suggestions of wide spread trials and joys."

Rogers earned his early fame in the 1860s focusing on Civil War subjects. He did not take up current issues until decades later, when toward the end of his career he addressed recent events once again with this work, Politics. The group was released in fall of 1888 during a hotly contested presidential election campaign, as the incumbent Democrat Grover Cleveland battled the Republican candidate Benjamin Harrison. Their principal point of contention was the tariff on foreign goods coming into the United States, intended to protect domestic industry. Cleveland considered the tariff inherently unjust and advocated reducing it, while Harrison opposed a reduction. The November 6 election proved remarkably close: Cleveland won the popular vote, but Harrison won the electoral vote, giving him the victory. Rogers' composition reflects the passionate discussions that would have surrounded an evenly divided campaign. However, in contrast to his earlier Civil War groups, which treated racial and social questions with great seriousness, here he took a humorous approach, perhaps in hopes of relieving some of the tensions of the moment and offering a gently mocking critique of political passions that went so far as to divide comrades. In his composition, two men flank a table set for a friendly evening; crackers and wineglasses are set out, and the open drawer below reveals an abundance of decanters that would have amply served for a long and companionable conversation. However, the disarray of the table, with crackers scattered about and a wineglass tipped over, suggests that the discussion has grown adversarial. The two men clearly show their agitation, and Rogers' use of individual eccentricities, exaggerated expressions, and small comic passages lends an almost vaudevillian air to the scene; these variety shows in their early polite, family-friendly form had begun in New York in the early 1880s. The man on the left has his foot wrapped up, indicating that he has gout, a common ailment of the period. In his excitement he grips the arm of his chair tightly and shoots a fiery gaze at his opponent; his flamelike hair stands on end, as if echoing his ire. Across from him, the other man clasps a decanter and in his careless anger is about to tip over his companion's wineglass. He grasps his umbrella as if he has just pounded it on the floor to emphasize his point, not realizing that he has punctured his hat. His hair swirls around his head as if it is unsettled by the maelstrom of his emotional state. Between them stands the straight man or, rather, woman in the scene, who smiles gently as she places her hand over one man's mouth and her fan before the face of the other to cool their tempers. Rogers left no indication of his own political leanings with regard to the election. In the interest of reaching a broad audience, he employed his genius for combining the general and the specific, bringing the event to mind but allowing the viewer to exercise his or her own point of view. Contemporary writers were quick to recognize Rogers' commentary on the election and extend it with their own narratives; one wrote of the group's "special fitness at a time when the respective merits of the rival presidential candidates are apt to lead hot blooded partisans of each into fiery arguments, and endanger the country's safety by latter day deluges in the shape of floods of (campaign) eloquence." The New Orleans Daily Picayune guessed from the clothing and erect posture of the man on the left that he was of a military background and that his adversary was a lawyer, doctor, or merchant, concluding that they were discussing the tariff. A New Hampshire commentator agreed that the gouty man and the "bloated bond holder" were likewise debating the tariff. Rogers' attempt to reengage with the flow of the day's events was a moderate success, but it marks a moment of decline. After more than a quarter century of national popularity, his work was losing its appeal. In 1888, the year that he produced Politics, he closed his lavish showroom on Union Square in New York and reduced prices on a number of his groups, suggesting that sales were down. Politics is the last work that he patented, indicating that he was no longer concerned about imitators trying to exploit his designs. The artist formally retired five years later.

One of Rogers' largest and most accomplished groups, The Balcony showcases the mature sculptor's skills. Every surface is embellished with remarkable detail and texture, including hair, fabrics, and an elaborate iron railing resting on an ivy-covered stone base. It stands as a landmark of the size and high quality of sculpture that could be reproduced in plaster for large-scale distribution in the late nineteenth century. It was also Rogers' tallest plaster to date, in keeping with the growing technical ambition that marked his late career. Rogers depicted a well-to-do matron who has emerged from her home. She holds her son as he leans down to bestow a few coins on two young street musicians below. The woman's flowing headdress gives her the appearance of a benevolent Madonna. Both she and her boy are dressed in fine clothes that connote their status, as does the richly decorated railing. On the street level, the children have finished their song and await their reward. The girl bids her dog to sit still on his hind legs with a piece of meat balanced on his nose; even he must perform to earn his keep. As Rogers often did, he turned to his children for models; in this case he used his daughter Katherine and his son Charles. [names correct as interpolated?] Rogers sometimes included famous actors and political figures in his sculptures, and here the dog is something of a celebrity: contemporary newspapers noted that Quiz, who sat for the sculpture, was a Scotch terrier from Queen Victoria's royal kennels who belonged to a visiting cousin of the artist's wife. The dog was noted for his ability to perform the trick that Rogers depicted of sitting patiently on his hind legs with a tempting morsel on his nose. The piece alluded to the virtue of charity, a subject that artists traditionally presented in an idealized or historical guise. Rogers addressed the subject explicitly in his 1866 The Charity Patient (1936.648, 1929.99), which shows a private transaction between a doctor and an anxious mother. In The Balcony, however, the message may have hit uncomfortably close to home, since Rogers made painfully clear the gulf separating rich and poor. Indeed, contemporary periodicals commented that this scene was played out every day on the streets of New York. The mother presides over the scene at a remarkable height. She and her son are quite literally on a pedestal above the less fortunates below; their clothes may be ragged, but they appear well fed and picturesquely happy with their vagabond life. Rogers presented them as innocents deserving of compassion, but he downplayed the difficulties of their lives. He was not alone in taking a sentimental view of the poor. Many late-nineteenth-century artists did not embrace social issues during this period or, if they did, only very obliquely. For instance, Rogers' friend J. G. Brown was well known for painting sympathetic ragamuffin bootblacks and newsboys. Rogers' sculpture was both praised and criticized, not for the realism of its subject, but for its execution, as writers discussed the astounding detail with which the figures were rendered. The artist considered this one of his major works; The Balcony inaugurated the opening of his new showroom at 23 Union Square, and he displayed it at the National Academy of Design's 1880 annual. However, by that time he was a mature sculptor whose style did not follow the new trend toward a more suggestive and less explicitly detailed form of realism, and his work attracted little critical attention.

The subject was born at Mamaroneck, New York, the son of Elkanah and Mary (Rushmore) Wood. After studying at the College of Physicians and Surgeons he graduated from the Vermont Academy of Medicine in 1834 and established his practice in New York. He was among the group of men who founded Bellevue Hospital in 1847, and was one of the foremost surgeons of that institution.