Landseer came to the attention of Queen Victoria, who commissioned a portrait of herself as an engagement present for Prince Albert. Landseer, who came to be known as England's premier animal artist, painted many of the royal pets throughout Victoria's reign and taught both Victoria and Albert to etch. This sentimental scene, of young Lady Rachel Russell offering food to her pet deer "Harty", while kitten plays with its "leash," is typical of Landseer's affectionate treatment of the relation of animals and humans. Landseer was one of fourteen children born to engraver John Landseer. Edwin and his older brothers were instructed in art by their father and at an early age Edwin began sketching animals at the two menageries in London, even bringing home found carcasses of animals and storing them under his bed to make sketching easier. At the age of thirteen, the young Landseer exhibited two paintings of animals at the annual Royal Academy exhibition. Later, along with his brothers, he studied under the artist Benjamin Robert Haydon.

Painter, stage designer, and illustrator, Laurencin was largely self-taught. In 1907 a friend and dealer introduced her to Picasso, poet and art critic Guillaume Apollinaire (with whom she would live for several years), and their circle of artist friends. Although Laurencin was immersed in cubism through her association with these artists, she remained peripheral to the movement, concentrating instead on oval-faced portraits in pastel colors.

Lawrence's sitter for this portrait is believed to be Francis MacKenzie Humberston, Baron Seaforth and MacKenzie (1754-1815), descendent of the old Scottish earls of Seaforth and clan chief of the MacKenzies. The title became extinct in 1715 when the estates were forfeited to the crown after the 5th earl took up arms in support of the Old Pretender (the son of James II). Estates and titles were reinstated later in the century to a cousin of the 5th earl. Seaforth raised many Highland regiments in the service of the government and was appointed Governor of Barbados in 1800. It may have been that the portrait was commissioned in order to commemorate this occasion. Seaforth knew Lawrence as a struggling artist in 1796, and must have sensed his future success when, in that year, he lent him £1000, an extraordinary sum of money in those times. Lawrence's precocious talent for drawing likenesses was encouraged by his family, who paid for drawing lessons from the well-known artist William Hoare; though, by and large, Lawrence was a self-taught painter who quickly succeeded in securing the most envied commissions. His portrait of Queen Charlotte was an outstanding success at the 1790 Royal Academy Exhibition. On Reynolds' death in 1792, Lawrence was made Painter in Ordinary to His Majesty George III, thereby assuring a steady stream of sitters who wanted their portraits painted by the most fashionable artist in London. Known for his "juicy" handling of paint as well as his excruciatingly lengthy painting process, Lawrence painted the most glamorous men and women of his age.

The Tuileries Gardens near the Louvre in Paris are all that is left of the palace and grounds commissioned by Catherine de Medici in the mid-sixteenth century. The palace itself was burnt down during the Paris Commune in 1871. During the years the Impressionists were painting Paris and its environs the Tuileries became a favorite place for depicting bourgeois Parisian families taking their Sunday promenade. Lépine (Laypeen) debuted at the Salon in 1859. As a student of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Lépine learned delicate coloring and a light touch, and although he chose to exhibit with the Impressionists at their first exhibition in 1874, he never received the attention or notoriety accorded to them. He is best known for his numerous views of Paris -- its streets, shops, gardens, as well as his views of the Seine. He died in such poverty, however, that his friends had to collect money to pay for his funeral.

The mid-nineteenth century was a period in which there was an interest in highly romanticized views of the past. The rise of the historical novel, by authors such as Sir Walter Scott and Alexander Dumas contributed to the public craze for things historical. Artists, too, responded to this interest, creating a new genre (category) of painting using historical recreations sometimes called "set pieces" (arranged groupings with stage scenery). Lesrel's debut occurred six years before the death in 1891 of his idol, France's best known and highest paid painter of historical scenes and "set pieces", Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier. Modeling his career after Meissonier's, Lesrel began exhibiting his work at the Société des Artistes Français in 1885. Like Meissonier, Lesrel was attentive to minute detail, displaying the same highly polished "finish" and the same devotion to period research, color, and textural display. In this painting of French cavaliers in seventeenth-century period costume, he employs one of his favorite devices, focused light, to showcase his virtuosity for depicting the textural qualities of velvet, leather, brass, and wood.