or a piece of fruit. About twenty portraits of children by the artist exist. Besides creating original work, Theus sometimes served as a copyist for his clients, although few of his surviving works have been demonstrated to be copies. Among these are a copy of a portrait of Christiana Broughton by Henrietta Johnston and a copy of a work variously attributed to William Keable and John Wollaston. Two nearly identical portraits of a man, possibly Isaac Smith, are also known to be by Theus; they appear to be copies of a lost original. Although Theus made some attempt to individualize the faces of his sitters, they share so many characteristics as to be nearly indistinguishable. Hallmarks of his style include close-set eyes, long noses, full lips, and dimpled chins. There is some evidence that he attempted to work from life when painting his subjects' faces, adding details of costume later in his studio. Costume remains the dominant focus of most of his portraits; he took greater care in depicting the colorful details and trimming of clothing than in showing his sitters' faces. Like many of his contemporaries, Theus did not confine himself to portraiture when it came to his art. His advertisement in the Gazette indicates that he was willing to paint landscapes and decorative work, including coats of arms and family crests, in addition to human subjects. That he accepted the commission to paint and gild the steeple of St. Michael's Church suggests, furthermore, that he thought of himself at least in part as a journeyman. Today paintings by Theus can be found in a number of American museum collections, including Brooklyn Museum of Art, Worcester Art Museum, Gibbes Museum of Art, Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences, Charleston Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Gallery of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Portrait gallery References 1716 births 1774 deaths 18th-century American painters 18th-century American male artists American male painters South Carolina colonial people American people of Swiss descent People from Chur People from Orangeburg County, South Carolina Painters from South Carolina Artists from Charleston, South Carolina