A young Lady, facing right in white dress with blue and pink striped sash, blue and red checked stole around her shoulders, gold earrings, her dark hair curled

The double signature on this miniature by both Inman and Cummings dates this work to between 1822 when Cummings became Inman's pupil and 1827 when they decided to divide the partnership they had formed in 1824. Inman was to devote himself to oil painting 'leaving Cummings the best-instructed miniature painter then in the United States' (W. Dunlap, History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States, New York, 1834, II, p. 400). Inman and Cummings were both founders of the National Academy of Design in New York and Inman served as its vice-president in 1827 while Cummings continued to teach miniature painting and drawing at the school for over thirty years. Inman lived in Philadelphia from 1831 to 1834 where he was partner in the lithographic firm of Childs and Inman. He returned to New York and in 1844 travelled to England with commissions to paint William Wordsworth and Thomas Macaulay. An essay written by Cummings conjures up his own style: 'Works in miniature should possess the same beauty, breadth of light and shade, brilliancy, truth of colour, and firmness of touch, as works executed on a larger scale' (Dunlap, op. cit., pp. 10-14).