Oil on canvas, unsigned, the verso with stamp of New York colorman Edward Dechaux ("Prepared by / Edward Dechaux / New York"), possibly painted as a feigned oval; presented in a later frame.

Stretcher size 32 x 28 in.; Frame dimensions 35 x 30 1/2 in.

Property of Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, sold to support art collections care

From the Estate of the late Sallie Mae Kitchings Hollins, Beaufort, South Carolina (1901-1994)

Sallie Mae was the wife of John Knapp Hollins of Islip, New York and Beaufort, South Carolina (1886-1957)

A portrait of the Knapp Children, by Samuel Lovett Waldo and William Jewett, is on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It was donated to the museum by Sallie Mae Kitchings Hollins, in memory of her husband, in 1959.

The two children in the present portrait are included in the Waldo and Jewett portrait. Shepherd Fordyce Knapp (1832–1886) and William Kumbel Knapp (1827–1877) were the youngest of four children born to hide and leather merchant Shepherd Knapp (1795–1875) and his wife, Catherine Louisa Kumbel (1793–1872).

Allover craquelure; uneven varnish; 4 in. horizontal tear crossing cheek and bridge of William's nose with 1 3/4 in. vertical tear with paint loss extending below (reinforced with duct tape to verso); small area of paint loss to right of Shepherd's nose; no evidence of retouch visible under UV light; small dent to canvas in upper right quadrant.