George Cochran Lambdin remains most known for his skill with floral paintings, especially roses from his own garden. However, during his lifetime, he was recognized for his sentimental genre subjects of which one of his most famous was The Dead Wife, completed in 1860. Its popularity, with the bereaved husband holding the hand of his dead wife, received special recognition when it was exhibited in the 1867 Exposition Universelle in Paris*. Other genre subjects were from the American Civil War, resulting from his travels with the Union Army.

Lambkin also painted many portraits of Philadelphia women, usually accompanied by roses whose hues matched the complexion of the subject.

Lambdin was born in 1830 in Pittsburgh, the ...