Oil on canvas (lined), circa 1740, a three-quarter length portrait of a young woman wearing a maroon gown with scoop neck and an adorned cap, above her left shoulder a red squirrel perches on a tree branch, to her right she gestures to a basket of white and pink flowers, a distant landscape visible beyond. Housed in a later gilt wood frame with applied composition ornament. Ripe with symbolism, this painting is similar in style and treatment to that of a portrait of a young girl currently in the Victoria & Albert collections (MISC.199-1990).

SS 34 x 26.5 in.; DOA 41.25 x 34 in.

Collection of Mrs. Eleanor Yates, Asheboro, North Carolina Originally purchased by Mrs. Yates' uncle, John Stoakley of Memphis, Tennessee, from an art gallery on Bond Street in London during the late 1930s to early 1940s.

This painting is the companion portrait to lot 288, depicting this sitter's mother.

Professionally conserved by Ruth Barach Cox, Raleigh, North Carolina

$2,000 - 4,000