Finely drawn in India ink on vellum, these portraits depict three generations of the Filkes Family of Devizes in Wiltshire: little Abel Filkes (b.1748), his parents John (1720-1760) and Elizabeth (1710-1797), and his maternal grandfather Abel Grant (1677-1753).John Filkes worked alongside his brother and father in the Devizes textile trade as a wool stapler: effectively a middleman buying fleeces, grading them and selling them on to be woven into cloth. He and Elizabeth married in 1747 and had two sons. Elizabeth�s father, Abel Grant, was a prosperous merchant in Bristol who had a financial stake in five galley ships � Richard and Mary, Salisbury, Kingston, Brown and Berkeley � importing tallow, sugar and other commodities. Abel Jun. in his cute peaked cap was just 16 months old when his likeness was drawn. He grew up to follow in the footsteps of his paternal uncle becoming an apothecary.Little Abel�s portrait was taken in 1750; the other three are earlier. Ferguson has succes...