With a range of portrait miniature housing available, the choice between a locket, case, or frame might be determined by gender. This portrait was painted around the time of William Samuel Johnson’s marriage to Laura Woolsey, a member of the prestigious Connecticut Woolsey family, on April 20, 1824. William worked at a law firm in New York, and Laura often remained in New Haven near her family. She probably displayed her affection for her husband by wearing this locket portrait. William likely carried her portrait (1968.12.6) enclosed in its leather case with him to work or displayed it like a small oil painting in the home. Although it is now empty, it is likely that the tiny compartment on the reverse of this locket originally held a lock of hair belonging to the sitter.

At the height of his career, Henry Inman was New York’s leading portrait painter. The partner for eight years of the distinguished portraitist John Wesley Jarvis, Inman specialized in miniatures in the 1820s before dividing his practice with Thomas Seir Cummings, who took miniatures while Inman focused on standard-sized oil portraits. Inman was a founder of the National Academy of Design in New York and its first vice president in 1826. In the early 1830s he lived in Philadelphia and was a partner in the lithographic firm of Childs and Inman. Near the end of his career, Inman shifted away from portraiture, experimenting with genre painting and landscapes.