Polly Ouldfield of Winyah
ca. 1761
Medium
Painting
Classification
Painting
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of International Business Machines Corporation
Accession Number
1969.130
Rights
Public Domain
Tags
About this artwork
Polly Ouldfield was born into a life of privilege. Her father was a member of the Commons House of Assembly in London, and records indicate that he owned land in Georgetown in 1752. Polly's husband was a landowner from Charleston, South Carolina, who served as Commissary of Militia in the Georgetown District during the Revolutionary War. (Middleton, Jeremiah Theüs: Colonial Artist of Charles Town, 1953) In this portrait the landscape beyond the window suggests the Ouldfields' significant landhol...
About the Artist
Jeremiah Theus · 1716–1774
Jeremiah Theus (1716–1774) was a Swiss-born American portrait painter who became the leading artist in colonial Charleston, South Carolina. Born on April 5, 1716, in Chur, Switzerland, as the eldest child of Simeon and Anna Walser Theüs, he immigrated with his family in 1735 at age nineteen. The family settled in Orangeburgh Township under colonial land grants encouraging Protestant settlement. Th...