# Polly Ouldfield of Winyah

- By: Jeremiah Theus (born Chur, Switzerland 1716-died Charleston, SC 1774)
- Date: ca. 1761
- Medium: oil on canvas
- Classification: Paintings
- Dimensions: 30 1/8 x 25 1/8 in. (76.5 x 63.8 cm)
- Credit line: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of International Business Machines Corporation
- Museum: [Smithsonian Institution](https://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=23991)
- Rights: [CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/web/c2945f90bf6139dda8654b0bd025106c.jpg
- Who can see it: Tweens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

Polly Ouldfield was born into a life of privilege. Her father was a member of the Commons House of Assembly in London, and records indicate that he owned land in Georgetown in 1752. Polly's husband was a landowner from Charleston, South Carolina, who served as Commissary of Militia in the Georgetown District during the Revolutionary War. (Middleton, Jeremiah Theüs: Colonial Artist of Charles Town, 1953) In this portrait the landscape beyond the window suggests the Ouldfields' significant landholdings, and Polly's luminous, lace-trimmed silk dress embellished with decorative pearls also conveys the richness of planter society. Jeremiah Theüs often showed his subjects lit from above, as in this portrait.