We learn from these that Don Josef was thirty and his bride in her seventeenth year, and that she was born in New York. Unfortunately this is all that we know about her. Stoughton is a sufficiently familiar name in the colonial records of the New England and Middle States, but the lady of the portrait has not yet been identified nor has a search of the newspapers of the day revealed any mention of her marriage. It may very probably have taken place on September 8th, 1794, the date placed after Stuart's name on both canvases; but the journalists of that time took less note of such international alliances than those of the present. Something more about the lady is, however, certain to be found by the genealogists and delvers in old diaries and correspondence, for the wedding of the young Spanish diplomat with the pretty American girl just midway in her teens must have set tongues wagging and pens inditing. How the match turned out we do not know, but some argument as to their happiness may be based on the fact that Jaudenes' successor, the Marquis d'Yrujo, followed his example and took an American bride in the person of Miss Sally McKean, who was also painted by Stuart. _Two Portraits by_ GILBERT STUART _reproduced by permission of_ THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART _Printed from plates made by the Colorplate Engraving Company, New York_ [Illustration: _Dona_ MATILDE STOUGHTON DE JAUDENES _Wife of the First Minister from_ SPAIN _to the_ UNITED STATES] [Illustration: _Don_ JOSEF DE JAUDENES Y NEBOT _First Minister from_ SPAIN _to the_ UNITED STATES] Having thus disposed (somewhat unsatisfactorily, it is true) of the personality of the sitters, we can turn to the portraits themselves. The accompanying reproductions make extended description unnecessary. They are characteristic Stuarts, more elaborate, more complete, than most of his subsequent work, but showing clearly his personal point of view and the difference between his portraits and those of his contemporaries. He is less poetic, more literal than the rivals with whom he had contended, not unsuccessfully, for the patronage of London society. For him a pretty girl is a pretty girl, and it is enough. He seats her comfortably in a chair and paints her as she is. One cannot imagine him turning her into a nymph, a shepherdess, or a priestess of Hymen, or painting her with a very modish coiffure on her head and a pair of blue-ribboned sandals on her bare feet. These things Reynolds did habitually and moreover put his figures in attitudes with up-rolled eyes and extended arms and filled out his larger canvases with altars and tombs and allegorical attributes. This he did to bring his pictures in accord with those of the old masters whom he laboriously studied and deeply admired. His achievement fully justified him. His sumptuous canvases, rich in color, elaborate in composition, perfected with every technical resource, have ever since remained unequalled of their kind.