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Harriet Whipple (1822-1855) was the daughter of John Whipple (1784-1866) (see WAM 38.477, by the same artist) of Rhode Island and his first wife Maria Bowen (1772-1836). John and his daughter decended from one of the first settlers of Rhode Island. Harriet married William Smith Slater in 1844. A portrait of her in oil (ca. 1840), attributed to the same artist, is in the collection of the Clouds Hill Museum in Warwick, RI.Born in Leeds, England, and trained in an architect's office, Richard Morrell Staigg came to the United States in 1831. Washington Allston encouraged him and he soon devoted himself to miniature painting. He was a regular exhibitor at the National Academy of Design, New York City, of which he was elected an associate in 1856, and an academician in 1861. In the last two decades of his life he devoted himself to portraits, landscapes and genre scenes in oil.In a later frame.