Description:

Attributed to Jeremiah Theus (American/South Carolina, 1716-1774), "Portrait of a Young Girl Holding a Bouquet of Flowers", oil on canvas, unsigned, 29 in. x 24 in., period frame. Provenance: Family Estate Collection, Moultrie, Colquitt County, GA, reputed to have been acquired from a nearby plantation, c. 1970s. Note: Jeremiah Theus, the self-proclaimed “Limner of Charles Town,” created portraits, landscapes, and coats-of-arms from circa 1740, when he first advertised in the South Carolina Gazette, until his death in 1774. Known primarily as a portraitist, he painted the most prominent families across the Province of South Carolina. Theus, who was born in Switzerland, immigrated with his family to South Carolina in 1735; very little is known of his schooling, although his technique has been compared to the school of Franz Lippoldt (1688-1768) and to the contemporary painter, Elias Gottlob Haussman (1695-1774). The current lot exhibits many elements of Theus’ early style of painting, including the waist-length pose, the upright positioning of the figure, the soft brushwork of the face, and the accessories. Theus is known to have based many of the figural poses and clothing in his paintings on English mezzotints; therefore, many of his sitters have similar dresses or poses. For example, in Theus’ portraits of Sarah Parker Lowndes, Elizabeth Allston Lynch, and Susannah Holmes, all three ladies wear a dress based on a 1752 mezzotint of Elizabeth, Duchess of Hamilton, although Theus did make alterations to personalize each portrait. Similarly, the young lady in the current lot stands in the exact pose and an extremely similar dress to Theus’ portrait of Catherine Elliot. The Elliot family were generous patrons of Theus, having large portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Barnard Elliot painted, along with smaller portraits of their son and daughters. The girls’ faces, particularly Catherine’s, are similar in features to the girl in the current lot, conjecturing if perhaps our sitter is a sister or cousin in the Elliot family. Ref.: Middleton, Margaret Simons. Jeremiah Theus: Colonial Artist of Charles Town. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1953; Severens, Martha. “Jeremiah Theus of Charleston.” Southern Quarterly. Vol. 24 (1985-86): 56-70.

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