Oil on canvas, faint signature at lower left, presented in the likely original gilt frame.

SS 35.25 x 38.5 in.; DOA 42 x 34.5 in.

Elizabeth Justice Grimes was born on September 12, 1870 in Lincolnton, NC to John Guion Justice and his wife, Jane McBee Justice. After the premature death of both parents, she was raised by Reverend William Alexander Guerry, then Chaplain at the University of the South in Sewanee and later serving twenty-one years as the Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of South Carolina.

Elizabeth married William Bryan Grimes in Lincolnton, NC on October 11, 1893, at which time this portrait was likely painted.

Elizabeth Grimes was a prominent and active figure in Raleigh during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She was an early organizer and officer of the Raleigh Red Cross, serving as vice-president of the chapter during World War I. She also was an early President of the Colonial Dames of America and an active member of Christ Episcopal Church in Raleigh.

She died on September 29, 1953 and is buried in the Grimes' family plot in Raleigh's historic Oakwood Cemetery.

Born in England, the son of a landscape painter, William Garl Browne, Jr. immigrated to the United States with his father in the late 1830s. After exhibiting a portrait at the National Academy of Design in New York in 1840, he moved south to Virginia.

Browne was a sought after portraitist throughout the south, garnering commissions from numerous prominent families in North Carolina and Virginia. He maintained studios in both Richmond, VA and Raleigh, NC. Grimes family tradition holds that he had a studio in the backyard of the Williams Grimes home in the 400 block of Halifax Street, circa 1865. This portrait was completed shortly before Browne's death on July 28, 1894 while visiting his sister in Buffalo, New York.

Yellowing varnish with faint bloom to left of sitter's shoulder; minor rubbing to frame.

$2,000 - 4,000