Even in wealthy families, infant mortality rates in the 19th century were high by modern standards, but this young boy died not from sickness, but in a tragic accident. He fell down a stairwell in the Lilienthal home just before or after this portrait was painted. The lack of traditional memorial symbols makes it difficult to know if his parents might have commissioned it in mourning. Susan Lilienthal bore at least seven children and lost another, an eight-month-old girl, in 1861.