Notes
This double portrait depicts the two eldest children of John Henry (1796–1868) and his wife, Elvira McClelland Henry (1808–1875); at left is Margaret Ann Henry (1827–1881) and at right is Elvira Bruce McClelland Henry (1829–1874).
Margaret Ann was born on October 4, 1827, at Red Hill. She married William Alexander Miller in November 1849. Margaret Miller died in Lynchburg on February 11, 1881, and is buried in Spring Hill Cemetery.
Elvira McClelland was born on July 2, 1829, at Red Hill and died on December 21, 1874. She married twice, first to Jessie Higginbotham on May 9, 1848, and secondly to Alexander F. Taylor on November 19, 1851. She had one son, Robert Taylor (1852–?).
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.
The painting's direct provenance is not clear; however, it was likely painted around the same time as the daughters' parents' portraits (2024.5.1-2) circa 1838. It likely descended through the family. After John and Elvira Henry, the portrait's next documented owner is Margaret Henry Penick Nuttle (1913–2009), a third great-granddaughter of Patrick Henry by his son, John. Following Margaret Nuttle's death in 2009, the work was inherited by her first cousin once removed, Clay D. Hamner (1961–).
Clay D. Hamner gifted this and two other portraits (2024.5.1-2) to PHMF on April 10, 2024.