Portrait of Samuel Jones, Jr.

Swiss-born Jeremiah Theus accompanied his parents when they emigrated to South Carolina in 1735. By 1740, the young artist had established himself in Charleston, offering to paint portraits and landscapes and to embellish coaches and chaises with crests and coats of arms. Charlestonians patronized Theus heavily, and because he remained in the city, painting steadily until his death in 1774, he recorded an impressive number of the area's wealthier citizens.

This subject has long been identified as a son of Samuel Jones, Sr., and his wife, Mary Odingsell, of Charleston. At least two other Theus portraits of young men bear the same, inexact, traditional identification, however, and it is not yet clear which son is which. Colonial Williamsburg's painting most likely represents Samuel Jones, Jr.

The subject's self-confident, commanding posture and alert, direct gaze convey a sense of gentility at its most impressive and appealing. Yet it is the boy's youthful good looks, artfully captured by Theus's superb sense of coloring, that linger longest in the mind's eye.

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