This portrait of nine-year-old Sophy holding her cheerful half brother Lin represents the Peales’ blended family. The sixth surviving child of Charles Willson Peale and his deceased wife, Rachel Brewer (1744–1790), Sophy was described as "an excellent mother and accomplished instructress" to her five younger siblings by Charles and his second wife, Elizabeth DePeyster (1765–1804). Appropriately, Charles’s composition echoes his many portraits of mothers and children. Sophy securely holds Lin as he offers her roses, lilacs, and carnations, symbolizing gratitude, tranquility, and gentleness.

Sophonisba (1786–1859) and Charles Linnaeus (1794–1832) were named after famous individuals in allusion to Charles’s interests in art and science—the Italian Renaissance painter Sofonisba Anguissola (c. 1532–1625) and the Swedish botanist, zoologist, and taxonomist Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778). The work of the latter shaped the organization of the natural science displays in Peale’s museum.