South Carolina school, manner of Thomas Sully, oil on panel half-length portrait of a woman with brown eyes and brown curls, depicted in a Romantic pose with her waist and head slightly turned and gazing to the left, resting her chin against her right hand, her right elbow atop her left wrist. Although wearing a gold dress, her arms are bare; a red drape sits across right arm and shoulder. The panel on which the image is painted appears to be mahogany and there is an unusual wooden grid brace across the back, presumably to allow for shrinkage and expansion and prevent warping. Antique, but not original, giltwood frame with Janneau's Art Store, Charleston, framing label en verso. 25-1/2" x 20" sight, 30-1/2" x 25-1/4" framed. Circa 1830. Provenance: the family of Dr. William Davis Melton, of Columbia, South Carolina, who was from 1922-1926 the president of South Carolina University (now called the University of South Carolina). The painting hung in the President's House on Pendleton Street until his death in 1926, and then descended to his daughter Henrietta Melton Durham; it was purchased from her estate by her niece Anne Ford Melton Kimzey of Signal Mountain, Tenn. and displayed there for several years before being acquired by the current consignor. It is thought to depict a family member, possibly Dr. Melton's grandmother, Cynthia Jane Miller (b. 1810). CONDITION: Extensive inpainting including facial area about 25%.