John Gallaher Shinn was the son of the founder of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. He was 23 years old at the time of this sitting. Peale also painted other members of the Shinn family including the sitter's grandfather, Col. John Shinn, his mother, Mary White Shinn, painted in 1845 and his sister, Catherine Lucy Stevenson Shinn Haddock, painted in 1844.

RELATED LITERATURE
J.H. Shinn, The Shinn Family in Europe and America, Philadelphia,
1903, pp. 228-230.