Since the early 1990s I have researched the patronage of W. H. Osborn (1820-1894), president of the Illinois Central Railroad and major collector of American art. Among his art holdings was a much-exhibited painting by Daniel Huntington, president of the National Academy of Design and a close friend to Osborn and his father-in-law, the patron Jonathan Sturges (1802-1874). The painting, Ichabod Crane and Katrina Van Tassel, (Historic Hudson Valley collection) was reproduced in an 1864 edition of Washington Irving's Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. Imagine my surprise when a closely related oil painting of Katrina Van Tassel by herself but in the same pose of coyly peeling apples (a hint of her potential fecundity) came up at auction at Skinner; I had to buy it and I did. Looking at the exhibition records for the National Academy of Design, I saw that my painting was exhibited there in 1862, loaned by collector George M. Vanderlip. The following year, Osborn's painting was exhibited, and the year after that, the Artist's Edition of the Sketch Book was published, with the engraving, provided here. Also in 1864, Osborn's painting was exhibited at the Metropolitan Fair, held in New York City's Union Square, a huge fair whose ticketing and sales proceeds benefited the Union effort during the Civil War. The Cooper-Hewitt Museum owns a drawing of Katrina Van Tassel, I recently discovered, such a wonderful string of artistic pearls coming together after 150-plus years!