Although Jeannin produced traditional still lifes incorporating a variety of items, he was first and foremost a painter of flowers whether growing wild in a field, cultivated in a park in Paris, or arranged attractively in a vase. Elected president of the Society of Flower Painters, he was especially admired for his floral compositions at the end of the 19th century. Lucas owned one work by Jeannin, a study of flowers acquired on May 10, 1880, which the artist inscribed to him. However in a touching tribute to the collector, Jeannin painted this last portrait of Lucas on his deathbed, a cluster of white roses placed on his chest as he expired. George Aloysius Lucas died in his Paris apartment on December 16, 1909 at the age of eighty-six. His remains were returned to Baltimore and, following a ceremony at the Cathedral (now the Basilica of the Assumption) were interred in Greenmount Cemetery on February 26, 1910.