Linda - Forget what the hand-written card says, and look at the picture ... I see a young woman in a double strand of pearls, a voluminous gauzy white shawl, wearing a white gauze dress with a wrapped bodice and a raised waistline, and a very sleek hair style. Everything I see in the picture is consistent with it being painted between 1790-1810. Sully was a "society painter", catering to the wealthy, so paying a few dollars more for detail was not a problem for his sitters. He wasn't the travelling portrait painter who had stock canvases he painted heads onto, charging extra for personalization. Sully's fame was so great that women travelled WEEKS to get to his studio. This portrait was an expensive status symbol for the man who paid Sully to do it. And a fashionable young woman would not sit for a portrait in less than her fashionable best. The fashion for all-white, filmy, Greek-inspired clothing (on women) was over before Delilah was born. Look at known Sully portraits from the 1830s and see what they look like. Neckline, fabric, shape is all different. Also, by the time Delilah was old enough for this to be her (1830s), the "a la greque" fashions were considered not only unfashionable, but verging on immoral. Posing for a portrait in a Directoire style muslin gown would have been like posing in your corset cover ... unthinkable! "There is supposedly another portrait by the same artist of Nilson Henry Stearly and a sampler done by Adiline, but we are not aware of their whereabouts. They might have been sold when DH's grandmother died." Stories about family change over time, and ownership of objects and identities of portraits are misremembered unless you have someone who writes it all down as it happens and a family that preserves the writings. It's just as likely that this is Adiline's portrait, to match Nilson's, and the sampler was done by their daughter Delilah. The index of Sully's paintings is fairly complete, and it would be worth looking into it to see if he mentions the painting.

beachnut, I just saw your old post, and the name looks like "G. Cox" to me. I checked askart.com, and I don't see an artist by that name. He may be European, or I may be reading it wrong.

Although I have a lot of originals, I also have a framed copy of John Singer Sargent's, "Corfu, Light and Shadows", an Old Master's (Bruegel?) still life and another flower study that I have hanging right along side of them. I could care less that they're not originals, because the pictures themselves make me happy just walking past them every day. Art should speak to you and I think it still speaks when it's a copy, too. One thing about those copies with the brush strokes, though: my still life is like this and what it is, is really just a print of the original on canvas that someone painted clear brush strokes on top of . . . and they don't even match the brush strokes in the painting in many places! I'm not sure one is worth several hundred of dollars, if this is what you're thinking of. I bought mine secondhand, framed, for $30, so I'm satisfied that I didn't pay too much for it, although I did have to repaint and antique the frame ;~P

What a beautiful and unique piece. I wouldn't mess with it, though, and would let a restorer clean it up. On Antique Road Show they often describe how things are devalued with cleaning, and lose their treasured patina. Here is a link that might be useful: This link works