Bequeathed by the sitter's wife, Anna Maria Brodeau Thornton [d. 1865], Washington, D.C., to her step-niece, Adelaide Thomason Talbot [Mrs. Isham Talbot, 1799/1800-1873], Washington, D.C.;[1] her daughter, Mary Louisa Talbot, Kentucky.[2] Virginia Collins Miller [Mrs. Thomas Miller, 1809-1892], Washington, D.C.;[3] her daughter, Anna Thornton Miller Murray [Mrs. Sterling Murray, 1836-1917], Leesburg, Va.[4] Sold 4 January 1922 on behalf of an unidentified descendant by (Mary H. Sully, Brooklyn, New York) to (Art House, Inc., New York);[5] Thomas B. Clarke [1848-1931], New York; his estate; sold as part of the Clarke collection on 29 January 1936, through (M. Knoedler & Co., New York), to The A. W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh; gift 1942 to NGA. [1] Mrs. Thornton's will, dated June 1855 (Office of Public Records, Washington, D.C. lists the "Portraits by Stuart to Mrs. Talbot" (copy, NGA curatorial file). Adelaide Talbot was the daughter of James B. Thomason, William Thornton's step-brother, and became the third wife of Isham Talbot, United States senator from Kentucky (1815-1819 and 1820-1825); Anna Maria Brodeau Thornton, "History and Life od Dr. William Thornton," unpublished manuscript, 1828, unpaginated, Thornton Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. [2] George C. Mason, _The Life and Works of Gilbert Stuart_, New York, 1879, 269; Museum of Fine Arts, "Portraits Painted by Stuart...taken from Mason's _Life and Works of Gilbert Stuart_." _Exhibition of Portraits Painted by Gilbert Stuart_, Boston, 1880, 58, no 614; letter of 4 June 1914 from Anna T. Murray to Charles Henry Hart (NGA curatorial file). [3] Anna T. Murray to Charles Henry Hart, 4 June 1914; Virginia Miller was the wife of Dr. Thomas Miller, owner of the Thornton home on F Street, N.W., at the time of Mrs. Thornton's death (obituary of Anna M. Thornton, _Daily National Intelligencer_, 18 August 1865). How and when Mrs. Miller acquired the portraits is unknown. For Mrs. Miller's dates see her obituary in the (Washington) _Evening Star_, 6 June 1892. [4] Letter of 4 June 1914 from Murray to Hart; Mrs. Murray, who was named after Mrs. Thornton, left her belongings to her two sisters, Virginia Miller and Sally Fendall, "asking them to dispose of them in a proper manner, after my debts are paid, making gifts of remembrance to the special friends whom I love" (copy of will, which was filed 28 November 1917; Circuit Court of Loudoun County, Leesburg, Virginia). [5] Receipt dated 4 January 1922, signed by Mary H. Sully (NGA curatorial file). Art House, Inc., was founded by Thomas B. Clarke in 1891; from 1919 to 1931 Thomas B. Clarke, Jr., Charles X. Harris, Alice T. Bay, and Clarence J. Dearden owned the firm. Mary Sully and her colleague A.E. Rueff provided Clarke with the provenance of the portraits.