Lemuel Maynard Wiles

Lemuel Maynard Wiles (1826–1905) was the father of the artist. In addition to this picture, Wiles painted his father in a double portrait, "The Artist's Father and Mother" in 1899 (Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), in a bust portrait in 1898, and in an ink drawing that has a composition similar to this painting. Like his son, Lemuel Maynard Wiles was an artist who taught and painted in Washington, D.C., Albany, and Utica, New York before settling in New York in 1864. Thereafter, in the summer, he taught at the Silver Lake Art School in Ingham, not far from his birthplace at Perry, New York. In the 1890s, both he and his son taught summer classes at Peconic, New York.