Henry Peters Gray

Henry Peters Gray (June 23, 1819 - November 12, 1897) was an American portrait and genre painter.

[1] Elected a member of the National Academy of Design in 1842, he succeeded Huntington as president in 1870, holding the position until 1871.

[1] The Greek Lovers was painted by Gray after a trip to Italy, where he was greatly influenced by the art of the Italian Renaissance.

When the officer is transferred to another post, he asks that she accompany him, however, her pure mind was so upset by this indecorous suggestion that she pined away, surrounded by her devoted family.

The painting shows her in her decline, possibly "thinking of her faithless lover?—or were her thoughts wandering to that distant churchyard, into whose bosom she might soon be gathered?

Watercolor miniature portrait of Gray by Henry Colton Shumway (1807–1884), at the Metropolitan Museum of Art , 1842
L to R.: Henry Kirke Brown , Henry Peters Gray and Asher Brown Durand , 1850