Description:Portrait of two young children. The girl is standing to the right of a red chair in right profile but looking directly at the viewer. She is wearing a white off-the-shoulder dress with a large blue bow at the shoulder. Her right hand is resting on her brother's upper right leg as he sits in the chair with that leg folded under his left. He has a white top with a plaid bow on the visible left shoulder and is wearing a plaid skirt or kilt. Both children have dark hair--her hair is parted in the middle and his on his right.
History:Family tradition states that the artist Washington Cooper painted the faces on already prepared bodies. This has never been verified.
Notes:Children of Col. John Overton and Harriet Virginia (Maxwell) Overton. Martha Overton (1853-1917) married Jacob McGavock Dickinson on April 20, 1876. Dickinson was Secretary of War under President Taft; member of Supreme court on four different appointments; Assistant Attorney General and Professor of Law at Vanderbilt University. Jackson May Overton--always referred to by his middle name, May, (1855-1922) married Nannie Hensley (1855-1890) in 1877; inherited "Travellers Rest" and was manager of the "Hermitage Stud" known as the largest nursery of trotters in the South.
