Portrait of Charlotte Pepper Gignilliat (Mrs. James Gignilliat)(1748-1803)

The handsome portraits of the Gignilliats of Charleston, South Carolina, and later Darien, Georgia, descended in the family until their acquisition by Colonial Williamsburg. The couple married in 1766. In the seventeenth century, the Gignilliat family moved from Switzerland to Charleston, where they became large landowners. James and Charlotte had residences in Charleston and at their plantation on the Broad River. After the Revolutionary War, they moved to Georgia, where he operated a rice plantation named Contentment.
Benbridge’s skillful use of color is balanced and lovely, particularly in the portrait of Mrs. Gignilliat. She wears “portrait dress,” that is, clothing that was donned just for the portrait or that was, perhaps, fictitious, created by the artist. James is probably wearing his own clothing.

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