The subject of this portrait is George W. Holmes, the Irish-born landscape painter and Eakins's father's friend. He appears as the right-hand seated figure in Eakins's The Chess Players, 1876 (MMA, 81.14). Historically, the Metropolitan had cited the subject as William H. Holmes per a note in the museum's files by Charles Bregler (through whom the photograph was acquired) who stated that the portrait was of William H. Holmes, the painter and anthropologist who became director of the National Gallery of Art in 1920. For another portrait from the same period by Eakins of George W. Holmes, see an albumen silver print in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (1985-60-1).
