American Silver Presentation Casket, Designed by Evelyn Beatrice Longman, Executed by Gorham Mfg. Co., Providence, RI, Dated 1916

Evelyn Beatrice Longman (1874-1954) was an American sculptor known for her allegorical figure works during the early 20th century. She was born in Winchester, Ohio, but after discovering her love for sculpture at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition and earning a degree from the Art Institute of Chicago, she moved to New York City in 1901 where she began to work with the well-known sculptor Daniel Chester French. Her first recognized large-scale sculpture, Victory, was displayed at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair in Festival Hall. In 1915, the AT&T Company commissioned her Genius of Electricity to top the company’s corporate headquarters in Manhattan. She also worked on some of French’s major projects, including the Lincoln Memorial, for which she sculpted numerous wreath, eagle, and inscription ornaments and is said to have sculpted Lincoln’s hands. In 1919, she became the first female sculptor to receive full membership in the National Academy of Design. In 1920, she married Nathanial Horton Batchelder, headmaster of the Loomis Institute and moved to Windsor, CT. Other notable works from her long and illustrious career include the Williams Memorial, for which she received a gold medal from the National Academy of Design; Aenigma, for which she received a prize from the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts; a large bas-relief portrait of Daniel French for the National Portrait Gallery; and the Spirit of Victory, Hartford’s famous Spanish-American War Memorial.

Jacob Godfrey Schmidlapp (1849-1919) was a Cincinnati financier and philanthropist. His parents, Jacob A. and Sophia F. (Haug) Schmidlapp, were natives of Germany who immigrated to Piqua, Ohio. Schmidlapp began his career as a tobacco and cigar merchant in Memphis, Tennessee, but in 1874, he moved to Cincinnati and expanded his business to include distillery and malting enterprises. He founded the Union Savings Bank and Trust Company of Cincinnati, and was president of the bank between 1890 and 1907, when it merged with Fifth-Third National Bank. Schmidlapp was also one of the founders of the Export Storage Company, and served as director of the Equitable Life Assurance Society, the American Security Co., the Degnon Construction Company of New York, White Rock Springs Company of New York, and the Piqua (Ohio) Malt Company. Schmidlapp was also a trustee for several educational and cultural institutions including the Cincinnati College of Music, the Cincinnati Art School, the Cincinnati Law School, the May Festival Association, the Music Hall Association, and the McCall Colored Industrial School. His philanthropy extended to improving housing for African Americans, and he was involved in a project to build 400 homes in the Washington Terrace neighborhood of Cincinnati. Upon his death, he left a trust of one million dollars to be used to assist the people of Cincinnati.

In 1877, Schmidlapp married Emelie Balke, with whom he had six children. The six names on the cover surrounding the double portrait are those of their children. He tragically lost his wife and daughter Emma Louise in a railroad accident in 1900 and his daughter Charlotte Rose in an automobile accident in 1906. Afterwards, he found a way to memorialize each of them: he started an endowment fund to assist female students at the Cincinnati College of Music in Charlotte's memory; in memory of his wife, he established the Emelie B. Schmidlapp dormitory of the Cincinnati College of Music; and a building was added to the Cincinnati Art Museum in honor of his daughter Emma.

Both born in Ohio towns only 100 miles apart, Schmidlapp and Longman may have become acquainted due to Schmidlapp's philanthropy in the arts. The American Art Annual recorded a gift of a plaster cast for Longman's Ryle Memorial by the sculptor in 1907 to the Indianapolis Museum of Art, which is also the same year in which the Emma Louise Schmidlapp Building was dedicated at the Cincinnati Art Museum. However, they were certainly aware of each other by 1909 when Longman was commissioned to create a bronze plaque in honor of Lieutenant General Henry C. Corbin upon his death by fifty of his friends, which included Schmidlapp, J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, August Belmont, and others. This gift to the army was unveiled in 1910 in Corbin Hall on Governor's Island. Although, no other commissions between the two are known, the dedication on the side of this casket "Made as a token of friendship..." certainly indicates they knew each other well.