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Portrait 2014.100.2
Portrait of the Russell Girls with Cat
Portrait 2014.100.2

Portrait of the Russell Girls with Cat

Dateca. 1866
Artist William Anderson Roberts (1837-1899)
OriginAmerica, North Carolina, Caswell County, Yanceyville
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsFramed: 115.6 x 101cm (45 1/2 x 39 3/4in.)
Credit LineMuseum Purchase, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Lee Caviness, Jr.
Object number2014.100.2,A&B
DescriptionFramed portrait of two small girls, each wearing a white dress with a coral necklace, are shown seated on the ground surrounded by trees. The smaller child, seated on the left, is barefoot and holding a grey tabby cat while her older sister clutches a bouquet of pink and white flowers.
Label TextWilliam Anderson Roberts was a prolific artist who painted in North Carolina, Virginia, and Kentucky beginning about 1857. He fought with the Confederate Army during the Civil War, but resumed his artistic activity at the war’s conclusion.

Roberts’s appointment books record roughly 106 portraits completed in Caswell County, his North Carolina home. There he painted several members of the extended Russell family. Among the wealthiest residents of the county, they were well positioned geographically and financially to be Roberts’s patrons. The youthful subjects of this painting, Annie “Fannie” Elizabeth Russell (1864-1955), left, and her older sister, Sarah Bell (1862-1886), were born to William Russell and Martha Jane Womack. Their portrait was most likely completed in early 1866, shortly before the death of their father.


InscribedHandwritten note attached to stretcher, dated October 11, 1960, reads "This portrait of Anne Elizabeth (blonde) Russell Johnston and Sarah Belle Russell Johnston (10 OCT 1862-31 JUL 1886) married two brothers when grown. Anne Elizabeth, fondly known as "Fannie" gave the portrait to Anne Russell Gwyn, her namesake, when the latter was a child. Fannie was Russ' great aunt, and Gywn, Ellis, and Lucy B's great-great-aunt"

Note: Russ was the nickname of Anne Russell Gwyn (Robertson), the last family owner of the portrait.
ProvenanceCa. 1866, the sitter’s parents, William Russell [1788-1866] and Martha Jane Womack Russell [1935-1902] (Yanceyville, North Carolina); By 1902 by inheritance to their daughter, one of the sitters, Anne Elizabeth Russell Johnson [1865-1955] (Yanceyville, North Carolina); 1955 by inheritance to Anne Russell “Russ” Gwyn Robertson [1919-2011] (Orange, Virginia) who was the last family member to own the portrait; 2013, Private Collection [sold, Tory Hill Auctions, Raleigh, North Carolina, June 29, 2013, lot #40]; 2014, purchased by The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Williamsburg, Virginia) from adLib Antiques (Raleigh, North Carolina)
Exhibition(s)