Mildred Lightfoot (1752-1799)

Mildred Lightfoot was a daughter of William Lightfoot and Mildred Howell Lightfoot. She later married Walter Coles. The MESDA notes taken by the field researcher state that she was painted at 13 and married Henry Paul Carrington. However, it seems likely that the descendants who owned the portrait confused her with her daughter, Mildred Coles who married Paul Carrington. This was possibly one of the portraits that a family descendant recalled in 1895 as having been scattered amongst descendants when the family left Sandy Point in the nineteenth century.

Dimensions: approximately (overall) 37 x 32 in. (93.98 x 81.28 cm.) (based on sister’s portrait)

The subject is a young girl. She stands inside a painted oval frame partly behind a table or plinth. She wears a hat with ribbons. Her left hand points downwards and her right forearm rests on a basket of flowers. The basket rests upon the table.

See: Lyon G. Tyler, “The Lightfoot Family,” William and Mary Quarterly 3, 2 (October 1895): 110; MESDA Database, S-6170