Portrait of a Woman

This portrait may depict a Philadelphia woman who married into the Lowndes family of Charleston, South Carolina. This information was given to the current owner at the time of its purchase from David Byers III, an acclaimed artist and designer who worked at the White House during the Nixon era. In 1803, Gilbert Stuart painted portraits of Thomas Lowndes and his wife, Sarah Bond I'on, both natives of South Carolina, while they were in Washington D.C. and it is possible he painted other members of the family around this time (Lawrence Park, Gilbert Stuart: An Illustrated Descriptive List of His Works (New York, 1926), vol. 1, pp. 492-493, vol. 3, nos. 510, 511).