Acquired by 1846 from descendants of the sitter by Charles Loring Elliott [1812-1868], New York; Abraham M. Cozzens [1811-1868], New York, by 1856; (his estate sale, Clinton Hall Art Galleries, New York, 22 May 1868, no. 23);[1] purchased by Jonathan Sturges [1802-1874], New York and Mill Place, Connecticut;[2] his widow, Mary P. Sturges; their son, Henry C. Sturges [1846-1922], New York and Fairfield, Connecticut;[3] bought 1 April 1921 by Thomas B. Clarke [1848-1931], New York;[4] 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] Thomas Bangs Thorpe, _Remininscences of Charles L. Elliott, artist_, New York, 1868: 7; "Sketchings. Our Private Collections. No. III," [Abraham M. Cozzens' collection], _The Crayon_ 3, no. 4 (April 1856):123; Leavitt, Strebeigh & Co., _Catalogue of the Entire Collection of Paintings Belonging to the Late Mr. A.M. Cozzens...May 22, 1868_ , New York, 1868: 7, no. 23, as "Dr. Houghton, of Dublin." According to the auction catalogue, Elliott "obtained it direct from the family for whom Mr. Stuart painted it." [2] Lawrence Park, _Gilbert Stuart: An Illustrated Descriptive List of his Works, with an Account of his Life by John Hill Morgan and an Appreciation by Royal Cortissoz_, 4 vols., New York, 1926: 386; on Sturges see _The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography_, 63 vols., Clifton, New Jersey, 1893-1984: 3:350. [3] In his will (according to _The New York Times_ (17 December 1874): 3, Jonathan Sturges left all books, pictures, and works of art in his city residence to his wife, Mary P. Sturges. On Henry Sturges see _The New York Times_ (18 February 1922): 13 (obituary). [4] The name of the seller and the date of purchase are recorded in a copy of _Portraits by Early American Artists of the Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries Collected by Thomas B. Clarke_, Exh. cat., Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1928, annotated with information from files of M. Knoedler & Co., NY (copy in NGA curatorial filess and in NGA library).