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Lot Essay
Magnificent in his dress, the young gentleman depicted in this portrait was undoubtedly from one of the most prominent families in pre-Revolutionary Charleston, South Carolina. Intriguing connections and family history suggest that the sitter is Sir John Colleton 4th Baronet (1738-1777), an Englishman who lived virtually his whole life at the Colleton estate, Fairlawn Plantation, on the family’s vast landholdings just north of Charleston. From 1735 until 1774, the city was home to Swiss-born portraitist, Jeremiah Theus (1716-1774) and during this time, Theus enjoyed almost exclusive patronage of Charleston’s elite. While approximately two hundred of his portraits survive, the portrait offered here is one of only a few to bear the artist’s signature.
Described as “a virtual court painter to the City of Charleston,” Theus was born in Chur, Switzerland and immigrated to America with his family in 1735 at the age of 19. He had probably received some training in his homeland as just five years later he advertised in the South-Carolina Gazette:
Notice is hereby given, that Jeremiah Theus, limner is remov’d into the Market Square near Mr. John Laurens Sadler where all Gentleman and Ladies may have their Pictures drawn, likewise landskips of all sizes, crests and Coats of Arms for coaches or Chaises. Likewise for the conveniency of those who live in the country, he is willing to wait on them at their respective Plantations.
As implied by the extent of his estate, by his death notice, which described him as “a very ingenious and honest man,” and by the impressive body of his surviving work, Theus excelled at his profession. Apart from the short visit of John Wollaston in 1765-1767, he was the city’s only portraitist (Martha Severens, “Jeremiah Theus of Charleston: Plagiarist or Pundit,” The Southern Quarterly: A Journal of the Arts in the South, vol. 24, nos. 1 and 2 (Fall-Winter 1985), pp. 56-57; Louise Dresser, “Jeremiah Theus: Notes on the Date and Place of his Birth and Two Problem Portraits Signed by Him,” Worcester Art Museum Annual, vol. 6 (1958), p. 43; for more on Theus, see Carolyn J. Weekley, Painters and Paintings in the Early American South (Colonial Williamsburg, 2013), pp. 193-217; Carrie Rebora Barratt,“Faces of a New Nation: American Portraits of the 18th and Early 19th Centuries,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, vol. 61, no. 1 (Summer, 2003), pp. 3-56).
As indicated by a handwritten label on the reverse, the portrait and its near-companion in the following lot were owned by the Trelawny-Ross family in Limavady, Ireland and in Devon, England by the late nineteenth century. Penned by Rev. William Edwin Trelawny-Ross (1883-1962), the inscription reads: (3) Unknown/ Uncle Arthur found this + (5) on stretchers in my grandfather’s house in Limavady after his death. William’s grandfather, Rev. William Ross (1814-1891) was Canon of Derry in Ireland and census records indicate that he lived on Gortnarney Road in Limavady in the northern region of County Derry. Both grandfather and grandson were keen family genealogists and created an archive that is now registered with the United Kingdom’s The National Archives (Trelawny-Ross NRA 42614). Given their investigative skills and identification of the numerous other portraits in the family collection, the fact that these portraits are described as “unknown” strongly suggests that they depict non-family members. William Edwin Trelawny-Ross’s inscription on the reverse of the frames is repeated in his inventory of the paintings at Ham House (fig. 2), Pennycross, in Plymouth, Devon, which was probably compiled in 1939, when the family home was requisitioned at the start of World War II (NRA 42614 1/21a,b,c).
An ancestor of Rev William Ross’s wife, Caroline Matilda Trelawny Collins (1817-1889), had very close ties to the Colleton family of South Carolina and, as documented by extant wills, it is likely that property, including these portraits, passed between the two families in the late eighteenth century. Sir John Colleton 3rd Baronet (circa 1679-1754), the grandfather of the proposed sitter, appointed his “true and dear Friend Anne Collins” (d. 1767) as one of the executors of his estate and further stipulated that she have “entire possession and use” of the Colleton family home in Withycombe Raleigh, Exmouth, Devon for the remainder of her life (“A Copy of Sir John Colleton’s Will,” 22 April 1751, NRA 42614 3/1). The will of this “maiden lady of great respectability” (NRA42614 3/19/3) noted that she was “of Withycombe Raleigh” and it appointed her great-nephew Arthur Tooker Collins (1718-1793) as one of her executors, to whom she left her property “including plate and pictures” (NRA 42614 3/2). While Colleton family pictures were meant to remain in the Colleton family, as per Sir John Colleton 3rd Baronet’s will, it is very possible that these portraits were mistakenly thought to be part of Anne Collins’ estate and that they then passed to Arthur Tooker Collins. He was the great grandfather of Caroline Matilda Trelawny Collins (wife of Rev. William Ross) and he also owned many of the family pictures owned by Trelawny-Ross descendants today, thus establishing a line of descent of family possessions from the late eighteenth century to the present.
Of the eight original proprietorships of Carolina granted by King Charles II, the Colleton family was the only one to establish residency in the state. In 1678 and 1679, approximately 16,000 acres were granted to Sir Peter Colleton; while it is not known if Sir Peter lived there himself, the estate, known as Fair-Lawn, had been settled with stock and slaves by 1694, when Sir Peter died and the proprietorship passed to his son, Sir John Colleton 3rd Baronet. Sir John’s eldest son, John Colleton (1701-1750), known as the Hon. John Colleton, arrived in South Carolina in 1726 or 1727 and soon after built the Fairlawn mansion house where he lived for most of the rest of his life. Destroyed by the British in 1781 during the American Revolution, the house is known today by the remains of its foundations, which indicate it was one of the largest dwellings of its day. As described by the Hon. John Colleton’s granddaughter, “this mansion as it was for a family residence was of course very magnificent and of such great extent that when the British troops made a rapid retreat after the battle of Eutaw Springs on reaching it they rallied under the shelter of the buildings. As indicated by the estate inventory, the Hon. John Colleton was one of the wealthiest men in the province and owned over 200 slaves at Fairlawn alone (Henry A. M. Smith, “The Colleton Family in South Carolina,” The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine, vol. I, no. 4 (October 1900), pp. 333-337, 340; Henry A. M. Smith, “The Baronies of South Carolina, II: The Fairlawn Barony,” The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine, vol. XI, no. 4 (October 1910), pp. 193-197; J.E.Buchanon, PhD thesis, Univ. of Edinburgh, 1989, Colleton Family and the Early History of S. Carolina and Barbados).
The Hon. John Colleton and his wife died within a short time of each other in 1750 and 1751 and his father, Sir John Colleton 3rd Baronet, died three years later at Withycombe Raleigh. Thus, the Hon. John Colleton’s young son, born in 1738, became Sir John Colleton 4th Baronet in 1754. Portraying a youthful figure of substantial wealth, the portrait offered here may well represent the younger Colleton soon after he assumed the baronetcy at the age of sixteen. It could even precede his succession to the title and have been painted a year or two after his father’s death. With powdered hair tied back in a queue, grey silk coat, waistcoat embroidered with an elaborate silver trim and a silver-trimmed hat, the sitter evidently enjoyed considerable status. In his pose and in the detailing of the clothing, the portrait closely resembles Theus’s portrait of a young man thought to be Samuel Jones, Jr. now at Colonial Williamsburg (fig. 1). Sir John’s calf-skin gloves or gauntlets, not seen in the Colonial Williamsburg portrait and most unusual in Theus’s work, are likely to be another deliberate symbol of the status of the sitter.
Apart from two stays in England, Sir John Colleton 4th Baronet lived his entire life at Fairlawn. He was to be a member of the Provincial Parliament and was later appointed to His Majesty’s Council. In 1758 he traveled to England where he married Anne Fulford (1742-1823) in Exeter, Devon, on 10 February 1759. The couple sailed to South Carolina in the same year, and Theus may have painted her portrait, seen in the following lot, soon after their arrival. They had a daughter, Elizabeth Carolina Colleton (b. 1763) a few years later, but Anne returned to England alone in 1767 where she gave birth to an illegitimate son in 1769. The marriage was dissolved by an Act of Parliament in 1772 and two years later Colleton married Jane Mutter. Noted to have been sympathetic to the Revolutionary cause, Colleton died in 1777 soon after the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. He was buried in the cemetery near Biggin Hill Church in the parish of St John’s, Berkeley County. The land for both the cemetery and the church had been donated by his father (Smith 1900, pp. 337-340).
The two portraits may have been shipped to the family seat at Withycombe Raleigh, either separately, with Sir John’s sent soon after its completion around 1754 and Lady Colleton’s not long after her arrival in Charleston in 1759, or together before 1767, when Anne Collins died and the portraits are thought to have been mistakenly transferred to her heir. There is a further possibility. Research into the family of the earliest proven owner, Rev. William Ross, Canon of Derry, reveals that his mother, Jane (Ogilby) Ross (1778-1858) spent some time in Charleston in the 1830s after the death of her husband and while her brother William Ogilby (b. 1783) was the British Consul in the city. Although unlikely, it is just possible that she or her brother obtained the portraits at this time, perhaps as mementos of a friendship, and brought them back to Ireland where they descended to Rev. William Ross and later his descendants in the Trelawny-Ross family.
Described as “a virtual court painter to the City of Charleston,” Theus was born in Chur, Switzerland and immigrated to America with his family in 1735 at the age of 19. He had probably received some training in his homeland as just five years later he advertised in the South-Carolina Gazette:
Notice is hereby given, that Jeremiah Theus, limner is remov’d into the Market Square near Mr. John Laurens Sadler where all Gentleman and Ladies may have their Pictures drawn, likewise landskips of all sizes, crests and Coats of Arms for coaches or Chaises. Likewise for the conveniency of those who live in the country, he is willing to wait on them at their respective Plantations.
As implied by the extent of his estate, by his death notice, which described him as “a very ingenious and honest man,” and by the impressive body of his surviving work, Theus excelled at his profession. Apart from the short visit of John Wollaston in 1765-1767, he was the city’s only portraitist (Martha Severens, “Jeremiah Theus of Charleston: Plagiarist or Pundit,” The Southern Quarterly: A Journal of the Arts in the South, vol. 24, nos. 1 and 2 (Fall-Winter 1985), pp. 56-57; Louise Dresser, “Jeremiah Theus: Notes on the Date and Place of his Birth and Two Problem Portraits Signed by Him,” Worcester Art Museum Annual, vol. 6 (1958), p. 43; for more on Theus, see Carolyn J. Weekley, Painters and Paintings in the Early American South (Colonial Williamsburg, 2013), pp. 193-217; Carrie Rebora Barratt,“Faces of a New Nation: American Portraits of the 18th and Early 19th Centuries,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, vol. 61, no. 1 (Summer, 2003), pp. 3-56).
As indicated by a handwritten label on the reverse, the portrait and its near-companion in the following lot were owned by the Trelawny-Ross family in Limavady, Ireland and in Devon, England by the late nineteenth century. Penned by Rev. William Edwin Trelawny-Ross (1883-1962), the inscription reads: (3) Unknown/ Uncle Arthur found this + (5) on stretchers in my grandfather’s house in Limavady after his death. William’s grandfather, Rev. William Ross (1814-1891) was Canon of Derry in Ireland and census records indicate that he lived on Gortnarney Road in Limavady in the northern region of County Derry. Both grandfather and grandson were keen family genealogists and created an archive that is now registered with the United Kingdom’s The National Archives (Trelawny-Ross NRA 42614). Given their investigative skills and identification of the numerous other portraits in the family collection, the fact that these portraits are described as “unknown” strongly suggests that they depict non-family members. William Edwin Trelawny-Ross’s inscription on the reverse of the frames is repeated in his inventory of the paintings at Ham House (fig. 2), Pennycross, in Plymouth, Devon, which was probably compiled in 1939, when the family home was requisitioned at the start of World War II (NRA 42614 1/21a,b,c).
An ancestor of Rev William Ross’s wife, Caroline Matilda Trelawny Collins (1817-1889), had very close ties to the Colleton family of South Carolina and, as documented by extant wills, it is likely that property, including these portraits, passed between the two families in the late eighteenth century. Sir John Colleton 3rd Baronet (circa 1679-1754), the grandfather of the proposed sitter, appointed his “true and dear Friend Anne Collins” (d. 1767) as one of the executors of his estate and further stipulated that she have “entire possession and use” of the Colleton family home in Withycombe Raleigh, Exmouth, Devon for the remainder of her life (“A Copy of Sir John Colleton’s Will,” 22 April 1751, NRA 42614 3/1). The will of this “maiden lady of great respectability” (NRA42614 3/19/3) noted that she was “of Withycombe Raleigh” and it appointed her great-nephew Arthur Tooker Collins (1718-1793) as one of her executors, to whom she left her property “including plate and pictures” (NRA 42614 3/2). While Colleton family pictures were meant to remain in the Colleton family, as per Sir John Colleton 3rd Baronet’s will, it is very possible that these portraits were mistakenly thought to be part of Anne Collins’ estate and that they then passed to Arthur Tooker Collins. He was the great grandfather of Caroline Matilda Trelawny Collins (wife of Rev. William Ross) and he also owned many of the family pictures owned by Trelawny-Ross descendants today, thus establishing a line of descent of family possessions from the late eighteenth century to the present.
Of the eight original proprietorships of Carolina granted by King Charles II, the Colleton family was the only one to establish residency in the state. In 1678 and 1679, approximately 16,000 acres were granted to Sir Peter Colleton; while it is not known if Sir Peter lived there himself, the estate, known as Fair-Lawn, had been settled with stock and slaves by 1694, when Sir Peter died and the proprietorship passed to his son, Sir John Colleton 3rd Baronet. Sir John’s eldest son, John Colleton (1701-1750), known as the Hon. John Colleton, arrived in South Carolina in 1726 or 1727 and soon after built the Fairlawn mansion house where he lived for most of the rest of his life. Destroyed by the British in 1781 during the American Revolution, the house is known today by the remains of its foundations, which indicate it was one of the largest dwellings of its day. As described by the Hon. John Colleton’s granddaughter, “this mansion as it was for a family residence was of course very magnificent and of such great extent that when the British troops made a rapid retreat after the battle of Eutaw Springs on reaching it they rallied under the shelter of the buildings. As indicated by the estate inventory, the Hon. John Colleton was one of the wealthiest men in the province and owned over 200 slaves at Fairlawn alone (Henry A. M. Smith, “The Colleton Family in South Carolina,” The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine, vol. I, no. 4 (October 1900), pp. 333-337, 340; Henry A. M. Smith, “The Baronies of South Carolina, II: The Fairlawn Barony,” The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine, vol. XI, no. 4 (October 1910), pp. 193-197; J.E.Buchanon, PhD thesis, Univ. of Edinburgh, 1989, Colleton Family and the Early History of S. Carolina and Barbados).
The Hon. John Colleton and his wife died within a short time of each other in 1750 and 1751 and his father, Sir John Colleton 3rd Baronet, died three years later at Withycombe Raleigh. Thus, the Hon. John Colleton’s young son, born in 1738, became Sir John Colleton 4th Baronet in 1754. Portraying a youthful figure of substantial wealth, the portrait offered here may well represent the younger Colleton soon after he assumed the baronetcy at the age of sixteen. It could even precede his succession to the title and have been painted a year or two after his father’s death. With powdered hair tied back in a queue, grey silk coat, waistcoat embroidered with an elaborate silver trim and a silver-trimmed hat, the sitter evidently enjoyed considerable status. In his pose and in the detailing of the clothing, the portrait closely resembles Theus’s portrait of a young man thought to be Samuel Jones, Jr. now at Colonial Williamsburg (fig. 1). Sir John’s calf-skin gloves or gauntlets, not seen in the Colonial Williamsburg portrait and most unusual in Theus’s work, are likely to be another deliberate symbol of the status of the sitter.
Apart from two stays in England, Sir John Colleton 4th Baronet lived his entire life at Fairlawn. He was to be a member of the Provincial Parliament and was later appointed to His Majesty’s Council. In 1758 he traveled to England where he married Anne Fulford (1742-1823) in Exeter, Devon, on 10 February 1759. The couple sailed to South Carolina in the same year, and Theus may have painted her portrait, seen in the following lot, soon after their arrival. They had a daughter, Elizabeth Carolina Colleton (b. 1763) a few years later, but Anne returned to England alone in 1767 where she gave birth to an illegitimate son in 1769. The marriage was dissolved by an Act of Parliament in 1772 and two years later Colleton married Jane Mutter. Noted to have been sympathetic to the Revolutionary cause, Colleton died in 1777 soon after the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. He was buried in the cemetery near Biggin Hill Church in the parish of St John’s, Berkeley County. The land for both the cemetery and the church had been donated by his father (Smith 1900, pp. 337-340).
The two portraits may have been shipped to the family seat at Withycombe Raleigh, either separately, with Sir John’s sent soon after its completion around 1754 and Lady Colleton’s not long after her arrival in Charleston in 1759, or together before 1767, when Anne Collins died and the portraits are thought to have been mistakenly transferred to her heir. There is a further possibility. Research into the family of the earliest proven owner, Rev. William Ross, Canon of Derry, reveals that his mother, Jane (Ogilby) Ross (1778-1858) spent some time in Charleston in the 1830s after the death of her husband and while her brother William Ogilby (b. 1783) was the British Consul in the city. Although unlikely, it is just possible that she or her brother obtained the portraits at this time, perhaps as mementos of a friendship, and brought them back to Ireland where they descended to Rev. William Ross and later his descendants in the Trelawny-Ross family.