Painter and etcher Thomas Hovenden was born in Dunmanway, Ireland, in 1840. He studied at the local Cork School of Design, and, after immigrating to the United States, at the National Academy of Design in New York City and in Paris under Alexander Cabanel. Hovenden was a member of the New York Etching Club, and he became a member of the National Academy of Design in 1882. He started exhibiting at the National Academy in 1874, and his work was shown at the Paris Salon in 1876 and 1878, and at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. He died in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, in 1895.