Robert Ransome Billups

Smith traveled as an itinerant portrait painter, from Cincinnati to New Orleans to Georgia, but little is known about his life. This painting is an archetype of early American portraiture, as is its companion, an image of Billups's wife, also in the museum's collection. They were early important residents of Clarke County, Georgia, where the University of Georgia is located. Billups died of wounds sustained in the Creek War of 1836–37.