While ivory miniatures made in the United States during the eighteenth century were generally small, tastes had changed by the early nineteenth century and miniaturists, including John Wesley Jarvis, were painting on larger pieces of ivory. This portrait of W. G. Miller is three inches high, the average size for the period. The reverse features an inset compartment holding a simple four-part plaid of dark brown hair, most likely cut from the wavy locks pictured in the portrait of W. G. Miller on the other side. Atop the hairwork are the cut-gold initials "WGM." Perhaps this locket was commissioned as a gift of love to Miller’s fiancée or bride, a common practice in this era.

Born in England, engraver and portraitist John Wesley Jarvis was the son of American-born parents who probably had returned to England during the American Revolution because of their British loyalist beliefs. The family returned to America in the early 1790s and settled in Philadelphia, where Jarvis apprenticed with the engraver Edward Savage. Jarvis started his own career as an engraver in New York City; by 1803 he was working in partnership with Joseph Wood primarily making miniatures, but also painting portraits and taking portrait-profiles using a physionotrace, which traced an exact likeness of a sitter’s features in silhouette. The partnership dissolved by 1810, and Jarvis moved to Baltimore. He returned to New York City in 1813 to undertake the commission that would cement his reputation as a leading portraitist: six full-length commemorative portraits of heroes of the War of 1812 for New York City Hall.