New York's leading portrait painter during the 1820s and 1830s, Inman apprenticed under John Wesley Jarvis (1780–1840) before breaking out on his own in 1822. A prolific and talented painted on ivory and canvas, Inman used an elaborate and highly finished technique to execute his extraordinarily elegant miniature portraits. Portrayed by Inman as a gentleman of sartorial splendor and stoical refinement, Bogert (1786–1862) served in the War of 1812 and was made colonel in 1824. He then opened a publishing house in Geneva, New York, where he printed books and newspapers. He also served as the city's canal collector and the loan commissioner for nearby Ontario city. According to family lore, the colonel was "the best dancer on the ball room floor of the Geneva Hotel." The glass aperture on the back of the locket displays a lock of Bogert's hair.

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