Oil on canvas laid on board, unsigned, presented in a period gilt frame.

Sight size 48 3/4 x 39 in.; Frame dimensions 60 x 50 1/4 in.

By descent of Louis Alfred Wiltz (1843-1881), governor of Louisiana, mayor of New Orleans, lieutenant governor of Louisiana, and a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives

Marie-Michael Bienvenue was born on October 2, 1844 in St. Martin Parish, Louisiana. On October 15, 1862, she married Louis Alfred Wiltz in St. Martin, Louisiana. Wiltz served two terms as mayor of New Orleans, from 1872 until 1875. He was also the 27th Governor of Louisiana, elected in 1880 but dying from tuberculosis at the age of 38 in 1881. Marie-Michael died in 1903.

The pendant portrait of Marie-Michael's husband is in the collection of the Louisiana State Museum.

Theodore Sydney Moise was born in Charleston, South Carolina. He moved to New Orleans in 1841 where he garnered a reputation as "one of the finest portrait and horse painters active in the South during Reconstruction," according to The Encyclopedia of New Orleans Artists.

Paintings by Moise are in numerous prominent public collections including a portrait of Henry Clay at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Life on the Metairie now on display at the New Orleans Fair Grounds Clubhouse (the original destroyed in a 1993 fire).

Fair condition with numerous repaired tears and patching, with associated retouch; frame with later gold paint.