Oil on canvas, 29 x 24 inches. Unsigned. Depicting three children, from left to right, Clement Cox, Walter Smith Cox and Elizabeth Cox. The center child, Walter Smith Cox, was a professor of law at Columbian University (now George Washington University). He also served as defense attorney to John Wilkes Booth, as well as a judge in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, where he oversaw the trial of Charles J. Guiteau, the assassin of President James A. Garfield. In 1955, J. Hall Pleasants, author of the first study of Joshua Johnston (Johnson). attributed this painting to Johnson, and dated it 1832. His notes read: "Although Joshua Johnston appears frequently from 1796 to 1824 (inclusive) in the Baltimore directories as a portrait painter at various street addresses, there were frequent lapses during this period in which he disappears from the directories for a year or two at a time, probably because he was then an itinerant or perhaps a resident of the ''precincts'' of the city. In the past few years a few portraits by him have come to light in Maryland counties other than Baltimore County, such as Harford and Cecil counties, and on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, painted after 1824. This Cox group is the latest, 1832, so far found. It therefore appears that his painting period extends later than the writer once supposed. But so far no notice of the date of his death in any locality has turned up. The exact details of the early provenance of this painting are somewhat confused. If all the subjects are the three children of Clement Cox of Georgetown, it was doubtless painted there, but it was possibly painted in the Eastern Shore of Maryland when Clement Cox and his wife and first cousin, Mary Melvina Ringgold, were visiting the latter''s parents, Richard Ringgold and his wife, Elizabeth Smith, of Chestertown, Kent County, MD. The painting in question was hanging in the home of descendents of Honorable James Alfred Pearce and his second wife, Matilda Cox Ringgold,_the Josias Ringgolds. The painting passed from the Josias Ringgolds to their daughter, Matilda Cox Ringgold, (Mrs. John M. Toulson), and from her to her daughter, Maude Ringgold Toulson (Mrs. Kenneth Seigworth). It was acquired from Mrs. Seigworth by Mrs. Seigworth''s father''s (John M. Toulson) brother, Dr. William Houston Toulson of Baltimore, who gave it to his daughter, Mrs. J. Edward Johnston (Helen Isabelle Toulson), its present (1955) owner." (J. Hall Pleasants, Studies in Maryland Painting, file # 3720, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, MD.)Provenance: By descent from the artist, to Richard Ringgold and Elizabeth Smith Ringgold, grandparents of the children depicted; to Hon. James A. Pearce and Matilda Cox Pearce; through the Ringgold family until 2008, when it was acquired at auction by the current owner. Copies of the the Maryland Historical Society records,Frick Art Reference Library Photoarchive, Smithsonian Archives of American Art listing, and additional research information is available for review, and will be provided to the winning bidder.