Edward Samuel Dodge most likely learned the art of miniature painting from his older brother John Wood Dodge. As an itinerant painter, Edward never fully settled in one place. After exhibiting miniatures at the National Academy of Design in 1836 in New York City, he moved in the following year to Poughkeepsie, New York. There, he painted this miniature of Harriet E. Hulse, the daughter of watchcase-maker Charles A. Hulse and his wife, Sarah. Against a pastel sunset, the cherubic toddler gazes heavenward. This reverential attitude fits the probable story, for such young children dressed in black only after the death of a close relative. The off-the-shoulder neckline and short sleeves were fashionable for what was called "full dress" mourning. Distinctive mourning clothes linked the remaining family together and set them apart from others.

The portrait of Harriet E. Hulse differs from examples earlier in the century in its elaborate design and large-ring hanger, which render it both wearable around one’s neck and displayable on a wall. Decorated with foliate engraving, this unusual locket could have been made by the sitter’s father. At one time the empty oval compartment on the reverse likely contained locks of hair, perhaps the young sitter’s intermingled with that of the deceased. By 1844, Dodge was painting in Richmond, Virginia, and then spent the early part of the next decade working as a miniaturist and daguerreotypist in Augusta, Georgia. In 1856 he brought his family to live with his brother in Cumberland Mountain, Tennessee, and shortly thereafter died of tuberculosis at the age of forty-one.