Little is known about Harriet (Hannah) Brown Skeele, who was born in Kennebunkport, Maine. She lived in St. Louis, Missouri, from around 1858 to 1871. Presumably self-taught, she followed the example of Sarah Miriam Peale, who also lived in St. Louis, and began to paint the detailed still-life subjects for which she is best remembered today. Skeele exhibited at the St. Louis Agricultural and Mechanical Association in 1858, at the Western Academy of Art there in 1860, at the Mississippi Valley Sanitary Fair in 1864, and at the St. Louis Fair in 1869 and 1870. Later in life she returned to Maine and was mainly active painting portraits of prominent local citizens. She died in Portland.