Miss Major, full face in dark blue dress with black lace border, gold brooch at corsage and gold buckle at waist, drop gold earrings, her brown hair dressed in an elaborate Apollo knot

John Wood Dodge was born in New York, the son of a goldsmith and watch maker and was apprenticed to a tinsmith at the age of sixteen. He taught himself to paint miniatures by copying a miniature he had borrowed from a friend and had soon established himself as a miniature painter. He enjoyed enormous success in New York but in 1841 with failing health he moved south to Nashville. In 1848, he bought land in the Cumberland Mountains of Tennessee and began to grow fruit trees. From 1838 to 1868 he moved about from Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi. A copy of his record book is kept in the Archives of American Art, New York.