Lot Essay
According to period records of Baltimore City Births, Deaths and Marriages, John James Giraud and Ann Harriet Wheeler were married on 18 June 1796. Baltimore City Tax Records from 1798 to 1808 list "John James Gireaud [sic]" as a surgeon and apothecary on Bond Street in Fell's Point. Dr. Giraud's death on 23 March 1839 was reported in local newspapers two days later. An abstract of his will lists his wife, Ann Harriet, and son, Augustus John Turenne Giraud, as his legatees and sole executors (Abstract of Wills for Baltimore County, Maryland, 1838-1840). The witness to his will were Horatio G. Jamesson, Sr., Richard Wilmot Hall and John A. Dubernet, all attending surgeons.
These portraits of Dr. and Mrs. Giraud were probably completed sometime between 1815 and 1820; the painted fancy chairs in which they sit would have been at the height of fashion during this period, in addition to which available genealogical information would place the Girauds approximately at the mid-point of their lives, as this couple appears to be. Whether or not the stylish red-painted fancy chairs in which the Girauds sit were actually part of their personal property or an artist's prop, they nonetheless proclaim the Giraud's to be people of exceptional taste and comparatively affluent means. A yellow-painted chair comparable to those illustrated here might be the classical painted and gilded sidechair made by Hugh Finlay and illustrated in Weidman, et al., Classical Maryland (Baltimore, 1993), p.91, fig.113.
These portraits of Dr. and Mrs. Giraud were probably completed sometime between 1815 and 1820; the painted fancy chairs in which they sit would have been at the height of fashion during this period, in addition to which available genealogical information would place the Girauds approximately at the mid-point of their lives, as this couple appears to be. Whether or not the stylish red-painted fancy chairs in which the Girauds sit were actually part of their personal property or an artist's prop, they nonetheless proclaim the Giraud's to be people of exceptional taste and comparatively affluent means. A yellow-painted chair comparable to those illustrated here might be the classical painted and gilded sidechair made by Hugh Finlay and illustrated in Weidman, et al., Classical Maryland (Baltimore, 1993), p.91, fig.113.