Jeremiah Theüs
Born Chur, Switzerland, April 5, 1716.
Died Charleston, S.C., May 17, 1774.

Portrait of a Man
(Probably Isaac Holmes)
,17551
Oil on canvas
29 7/8 x 24 7/8 in. (77.9 x 63.2 cm)
Museum purchase, 1938.78

Inscription
Lower right, in reddish-brown paint: "Theüs. / 1755"

Provenance
Anne Smith Robbins (1827–1899), by bequest to Nancy Craig Wharton; to her niece Mrs. C. Wharton Smith in 1921; purchased by the Worcester Art Museum from Mrs. C. Wharton Smith of Groton, Massachusetts, April 7, 1938.2

References
Burroughs 1936, 32, 33, and plate 25.

Worcester Annual Report 1939, 14.

"The Salisbury Collection," Worcester News Bulletin 4, no. 6 (March 1939): n.p.

American Portraits 1939, II, 201, 491, cat. no. 2597.

Middleton 1953, x, 75, 137, 138.

Dresser 1958, 43, 44.

Reutlinger 1975, 20, 21.

Goethe Institute Boston 1975, 10, 11.

Mead Art Gallery 1978, 216.

Teitz 1979, 20, 21.

Mansfield Art Center 1982, cat. no. 6, n.p.

Warren 1998, 175.

Exhibitions
The Colonial Epoch in America, Worcester Art Museum, April 18, 1975–January 4, 1976 cat. pp. 20, 21.

American Art from the Collection of the Worcester Art Museum, Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, April 27–June 24, 1979 cat. pp. 20, 21.

The American Portrait: Smibert to Sargent, Mansfield Art Center, Mansfield, Ohio, March 1–28, 1982, cat. no.6.

Notes
1. This painting also has been published as: Theodore Atkinson (Burroughs 1936, 32–33 and plate 25); Portrait of a Man (Worcester Annual Report 1939, 14); Portrait of an Unknown Man ("The Salisbury Collection," Worcester News Bulletin 4, no. 6 [March 1939]: n.p.); Hon. Isaac Holmes (Middleton 1953, 137–38); Portrait of a Man (Possibly the Honorable Isaac Holmes) (Teitz 1979, 20–21); Portrait of a Man Thought to Be Isaac Holmes (Warren 1998, 175); and Portrait of a Man (Possibly Isaac Holmes) (American Portraits 1939, II, 491, cat. no. 2597).

2. Anne Smith Robbins’s will states that "all the oil-paintings . . . including . . . one unknown be given to Nancy Craig Wharton." Suffolk County Probate Record, no. 109806, Will, vol. 753, p. 67, as quoted in Dresser 1958, 44. Robbins was the daughter of Louisa Anne Coffin, who was the daughter of Thomas Aston Coffin (1754–1810), who was the son of William and Mary Aston Coffin (1699–1775) and the grandson of William and Anne Holmes Coffin of Boston. The latter was the daughter of Francis Holmes (d. 1726) and the sister of Isaac Holmes (1702–1751).