AMELIA LAURA ROSE

This portrait is recorded in Thomas Sully’s “Register of Portraits,” which notes that the subject was Miss Amelia Rose, the canvas was a “Head” size and the work was executed between April 29 and May 8 in 1846 for the subject’s aunt costing $150. Amelia Laura Rose (1828-1885) was born in Charleston, South Carolina, the daughter of Arthur Gordon Rose (1793-1880), President of the Bank of Charleston, and Elizabeth Wigg Barnwell (1798-1830). In 1849, she married Octavius Jacob Guerard (1826-1852) and after she was widowed, remained unmarried, living in Charleston and travelling in Europe. The portrait was inherited by her son, Dr. Arthur Rose Guerard (1851-1937) and afterwards acquired by husband and wife James Earle Fraser (1876-1953) and Laura Gardin Fraser (1889-1966), among the most prominent American sculptors in the early twentieth century (see Edward Biddle and Mantle Fielding, The Life and Works of Thomas Sully (Philadelphia, 1921), p. 263; the Frick Art Reference Library).