Elizabeth Parke Custis Law Rogers

Eliza Parke Custis Law Rogers
Watercolor on ivory
c. 1822

Status

Not on view

Label Text

This miniature depicts Elizabeth Parke Custis Law Rogers, the only child of Martha Washington's granddaughter, Elizabeth Parke Custis, and her husband, Thomas Law. Miss Law was the niece of Edmund Law, the first Lord Ellenborough, and the granddaughter of Edmund Law, Lord Bishop of Carlisle. She married Baltimore attorney Lloyd Nicholas Rogers on April 5, 1817, and lived at the Rogers’ Druid Hill Estate near Baltimore, Maryland. It may be that her attire in this portrait records her mourning period for Colonel Nicholas Rogers, her father-in-law, with whom she and her husband lived at Druid Hill. Colonel Rogers died on January 2, 1822, ten months before her own premature death in August of the same year.

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Datec. 1822

Subject Elizabeth Parke Custis Law Rogers (1797 - 1822)

Geography Made - United States

Medium/TechniqueWatercolor (on ivory?), metal, leather, glass, velvet

DimensionsOverall: 3 3/16 in. × 2 3/4 in. × 1/2 in. (8.1 cm × 6.99 cm × 1.27 cm) Other: 2 5/8 in. × 2 1/4 in. (6.67 cm × 5.72 cm)

Credit LineGift of Katherine Merle-Smith Thomas, 2010 Conservation courtesy of The Founders, Washington Committee Endowment Fund

Object numberH-4916

DescriptionAn oval, bust-length three-quarters view miniature in polychrome watercolors of Elizabeth Parke Custis Law Rogers (1797-1822). The portrait is lit from the left and Rogers is presented with head and shoulders turned and gazing to the (proper) left. She wears a black dress with a black ribbon and two-tiered white lace collar. Her hair is worn in ringlet curls atop her head, its dark brown color augmented by golden highlights. Her proper right ear is ornamented by a jet black dangle dimpled with white and hung from a golden hoop. The subject’s eyes are brown and the alabaster appearance of her skin is highlighted with bluish tones. This is particularly evident under the proper left eye, around the mouth, and on the throat. The ground is in varying pigments of warm brown.
The miniature is set into a red leather case with green velvet lining.
Published ReferencesPortraits, Relics, and Silverware Exhibited at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, April 17th to May 8th, 1889 (New York: Trow’s Printing and Bookbinding Company, 1889), (It is possible this work was shown as Catalogue 140, p. 38.)

Catalogue of the Loan Exhibition Under the Auspices of the National Society of Colonial Dames of America,” The Octagon, Washington, D.C., April 17 – April 21, 1906. (Number 444 or 445 ?)

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