James Peale trained his daughter Anna Claypoole Peale in the art of painting miniature portraits in watercolor on ivory. She began her career assisting him with his work when his eyesight began to fail, but eventually pursued the medium on her own—as it was, according to her father, "the most suitable employment for a lady." During her lifetime, she completed more than two hundred miniatures, including the two portraits displayed here. In 1824, she and her sister Sarah Miriam Peale were elected academicians at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts—the first women so honored.