Notes
This portrait of Elvira McClelland Henry (1808–1875) and her infant daughter, Emma Cabell Henry (1838–1905), was painted from life by George Cooke (1793–1849) at Red Hill in 1838. It was completed with a portrait (2024.5.1) of her husband, John Henry (1796-1868).
George Esten Cooke was a portrait and landscape painter born in St. Mary's County, Maryland. After several failed attempts at being a merchant in both his native county and in Georgetown, DC, he ventured west and began painting professionally. Cooke traveled to Richmond, Virginia between 1824 and 1826 before studying in both France and Italy until 1831. He was an itinerant from New York to New Orleans between 1831 and 1849 and opened the National Gallery of Painting in New Orleans with the help of Daniel Pratt, which ran from 1844 to 1849. Pratt then added a gallery to his home in Prattville, Alabama to display Cooke's paintings.
One of Cooke's most famous works, "Patrick Henry Arguing Parsons’ Cause at Hanover Courthouse," was completed in the first half of the 19th century. The work details Patrick Henry's arguments in the landmark 1763 Parsons' Cause case, which propelled Henry into the public eye. It is now in the collection of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture. After a successful career, Cooke died on March 26, 1849, in New Orleans, Louisiana at age 56.
Per his will, dated May 1, 1863, John Henry left both of these portraits to his wife, Elvira, saying, "I give to my Beloved wife, The portrait of my Self & Herself painted by George Cook." It is assumed they were then inherited by her son, William Wirt Henry (1831–1900), whose mother stipulated in her will, dated April 18, 1870, that "I desire the articles put with my different children, when I broke up at Red Hill to belong to them & whatever may be left with my son, Wm. W. Henry at my death is to belong to him."
The portraits were then inherited by Wirt Henry's daughter, Lucy Gray Henry Harrison (1857–1944). Both portraits appear in a postcard photograph (00.8) of the entrance hall of the Red Hill mansion in 1912. The works were later owned by Susan Hill Dabney (1892–1986), a great-great-granddaughter of Patrick Henry. Her mother, Florence Miller (1853–1923), was the sister of Elvira "Ella" Henry Miller (1850–1955), both great-granddaughters of Patrick Henry and granddaughters of John and Elvira Henry.
Ella Miller also owned the paintings at one time, along with a portrait (2023.12) of Laura Helen Henry Carter (1836–1856). The former appear in several photographs (95.21.3-4) taken in Ella Miller's Lynchburg, Virginia home in October 1950. They eventually came into the possession of Susan Dabney and Ella Miller's niece, Margaret Henry Penick Nuttle (1913–2009).
Margaret Nuttle loaned the portraits to PHMF starting in May 1996 before requesting their return on November 11, 2007. In 2010 they, along with an additional oval portrait of John and Elvira's two oldest daughters (2024.5.3), were inherited by Nuttle's first cousin once removed, Clay D. Hamner (1961–), a fourth great-grandson of Patrick Henry and a third great-grandson of John Henry.
This and two other paintings (2024.5.1 & .3) were gifted to PHMF on April 10, 2024.