Boy of the Howell family

In an 1895 family history, a descendant remembered Lightfoot and Howell family portraits that hung at Sandy Point, later Tedington. One was “Portrait of half-grown youth and landscape, pronounced in Philadelphia to be the work of Sir Peter Lely – a Howell picture.” If it was a member of the Howell family, it likely came to Sandy Point after the marriage of Mildred Howell and William Lightfoot in the late 1740s. The subject of this picture is unknown as is its present location. It descended for a time with the portrait identified as John Howell now at the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.

See: Lyon G. Tyler, “The Lightfoot Family,” William and Mary Quarterly 3, 2 (October 1895): 110.