Creator: Henry Inman, 1842.

When Angelica Singleton Van Buren married President Van Buren's son Abraham in 1839, she became the hostess of the White House. The president was a widower and the White House lacked a hostess for his first two years in office. At receptions Angelica tried to use the formal rituals practiced at Queen Victoria's court in England, but Washington society used to the informality of the Jackson administration rejected them. Angelica's daughter Rebecca, born in 1840, died a few months later in the White House.