Hovenden was born in Dunmanway, County Cork, Ireland and died in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania. He was a talented genre and figure painter who was killed in an accident just as he was reaching a late maturity as an artist. He studied at the government Art School; in County Cook after which he immigrated to America in 1863 where he attended the National Academy of Design in New York. In 1874, Hovenden left New York to continue his studies in painting under the tutelage of Alexandre Cabanel in Paris. Upon his return to America, Hovenden became a respected teacher at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. Among his most famous students was included Robert Henri.

Among his most famous paintings are included,"Jerusalem the  Gold" and "Last Moments of John Brown" now hanging in the De  Young Museum, San Francisco.

What O'Clock is it?, which was a study painted two years earlier in 1876 is one of Hovenden's more important paintings. The oil on canvas, 38" X 53.5", exhibited in the National Academy of Design in 1879, No.350 and formerly in the collection of Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, New York: is of the major painting from his trip to Europe and culminated his academic training with his introduction into the new movement of Impressionism which most of the artist who studied in Europe were involving to.

Hovenden's What O'Clock is it? Clearly refers to the age-old  game and reveals a lessor known aspect of the artist's  realism, one which he celebrates the people of Brittany not  as subjects of the historically picturesque but as  individuals with familiar concerns, engaged in everyday  activities.
American Works on Paper III, Laurene Buckley

Listed

Benezit

Mantle Fieldings

Graves Dictionary of Artists

Britannica Encyclopedia of American Art