Elise Ford was an American painter, who was a studen and favorit model of Howard Chandler Christy. She is also is seen in many of his original illustrations, oil and watercolor paintings. An aspiring actress who later became a respected painter, Ford was also Christy’s student and research assistant. Forty years his junior, she became his companion until his death at age 80. They had a daughter named Holly born in 1939 while he was painting Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States, which is now on display on the stairwell of the West Wing of the U.S. Capitol Building.