Born in Norfolk, Virginia, George Washington Sully was a nephew of the premier American portraitist Thomas Sully (1783-1872). As a young man, Sully lived in both Florida and New Orleans, where he sketched and painted birds, caricatures and landscapes. Sully eventually became a plantation owner in Louisiana and did little painting after 1850.

Biography courtesy of The Charleston Renaissance Gallery, www.antiquesandfineart.com/charleston