Anna Claypoole Peale’s uncle Charles Willson Peale and her father James Peale, both artists, instructed their children in painting and encouraged them to embark on artistic careers. Anna Claypoole Peale had a long and successful career as a painter of miniature portraits. She and her sister Sarah Miriam, a portrait painter, were the first women elected as academicians to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1824.

Here is a bust portrait of Mrs. Jonathan Bates (née Susa Orcutt) wearing a black dress with a black-and-white Vandyke collar, white turban, and white-ground cashmere shawl in a narrow brass oval frame with floral design and hanging ring at top.