Gustave Clarence Rodolphe Boulanger (1824-88) was a French figure painter known for his classical and Orientalist subjects. He was born at Paris, studied with Delaroche and Jollivet, and in 1849 took the Prix de Rome. His paintings are prime examples of academic art of the time, particularly history painting. Boulanger had visited Italy, Greece, and North Africa, and his paintings reflect his attention to culturally correct details and skill in rendering the female form. His works include a Moorish Cafe (1848), Cæsar at the Rubicon (1865), the Promenade in the Street of Tombs, Pompeii (1869), and The Slave Market (1888). The recipient of many medals, he became a member of the Institut de France in 1882.

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain:  New International Encyclopedia. New York: Dodd, Mead. 1905. 

Frederick Childe Hassam (October 17, 1859 – August 27, 1935) was a prolific American Impressionist painter, noted for his urban and coastal scenes. Along with Mary Cassatt and John Henry Twachtman, Hassam was instrumental in promulgating Impressionism to American collectors, dealers, and museums. He produced over 3,000 paintings, watercolors, etchings, and lithographs over the course of his career, and was a founding member of The Ten, an influential group of American artists of the early 20th century.

Hassam (pronounced HASS'm;) (known to all as Childe, pronounced like child) was born in his family home in Dorchester, Massachusetts in 1859. His father Frederick was a cutlery merchant and descended from a long line of New Englanders, while his mother, Rosa, was a native of Maine. Hassam demonstrated an interest in art early. He had his first lessons in drawing and watercolor while attending the Mather public school, but his parents took little notice of his nascent talent.

A disastrous fire in November 1872 wiped out much of Boston's commercial district, including his father's business. To help out the family, Hassam dropped out of high school and his father arranged a job for him in the accounting department of publisher Little, Brown & Company. His poor aptitude for figures, however, convinced his father to allow him to pursue an art career, and Hassam found employment with George Johnson, a wood engraver. He quickly proved an adept draftsman (listed as a "draughtsman" in the Boston directory) and he produced designs for commercial engravings such as letterheads and newspapers. Around 1879, Hassam began creating his earliest oil paintings, but his preferred medium was watercolor, mostly outdoor studies.

Elizabeth Nourse (b. October 26, 1859 – October 8, 1938) was a portrait and landscape painter born in Cincinnati, Ohio in the Mt. Healthy area. She also was familiar with working with watercolors, painting furniture and sculpting.

Born to the Catholic household of Caleb Elijah Nourse and Elizabeth LeBreton Rogers Nourse on October 26, 1859, Elizabeth and her twin sister were the youngest of ten children. She attended the McMicken School of Design in Cincinnati at age fifteen, and was one of the first women admitted to the women's life class offered there taught by Thomas Satterwhite Noble. She also studied watercolor painting while there. She studied at the school for seven years and was even offered a teaching position, which she declined.

In 1882 both parents died, and with the assistance of an art patron, she went to New York to continue her studies, briefly in the Art Students League. In 1883 she had returned to Cincinnati and made her living decorating home interiors and painting portraits. From 1884 – 1886 she spent most of her summers in Tennessee in the Appalachian Mountains doing watercolor landscapes.