This early example of the miniatures of Richard Morrell Staigg was likely painted in Newport, Rhode Island, where he was exposed to many works by Edward Greene Malbone, arguably the most esteemed miniaturist of the nineteenth century. Staigg, a young aspiring artist from Leeds, England, learned miniature painting by copying Malbone’s works. This portrait of an unknown gentleman resembles Malbone’s miniatures in the delicate hatching in the sitter’s face, the background of the sky, and the suggestion of a landscape. Like Malbone, Staigg also exploited the luminosity of the ivory below the painted surface, imbuing this portrait with a sense of airiness in the areas of white.

Before moving to the United States in 1831, Staigg worked as an architect’s assistant and attended evening classes for drawing. In Newport, Rhode Island, his first job was as an ornamental and sign painter, and he later learned the basics of miniature painting from Jane Stuart, daughter of the well-known American artist Gilbert Stuart, with encouragement from the painter Washington Allston. Staigg greatly admired the late Edward Greene Malbone’s miniatures, many of which Staigg could see in Newport, where he spent his summers. Interestingly, in 1958, he rescued Henry T. Tuckerman, the author of Book of Artists (1867), from drowning.

During the rest of the year, and for over the next three decades, Staigg lived, worked, and exhibited in New York and Boston. In his later miniatures, Staigg often used a large oval format, painted in darker colors, and recorded his sitters' features with a verisimilitude that rivaled photography in its attention to detail. He continued to produce miniatures for an elite clientele during the waning decades of the miniature's popularity. Among his illustrious sitters are Washington Allston, Daniel Webster, and Edward Everett. Staigg was elected a member of the National Academy of Design and traveled to Europe several times, where he exhibited at the Salon de Paris and the Royal Academy.