Susannah Burnett Moseley (Mrs. William Moseley, 1595-ca.1655)

Susannah was married to William Moseley, an English expatriate living in Rotterdam. She was the daughter of Raph(e) and Magdelen Clark Burnett and her first husband was Arthur Blackmore. The Moseley immigrated with their sons William and Arthur to Virginia in ca. 1649. They settled at an estate in Lynnhaven Parish that came to be known as Rolleston Hall. They apparently brought at least four family portraits with them, which descended in the family in Norfolk through the nineteenth century. It is assumed that they were painted in Rotterdam before emigrating.

According to nineteenth- and early twentieth-century descriptions and a black-and-white photograph, the subject wears an elaborate gown with lace, bracelets, rings, and holds a small book. A vase with a tulip appears next to her.

See: Charles Bolton, The Founders: Portraits of Persons Born Abroad (1919), 175-189; Essex Institute Historical Collection, v. 49 (1913), 178-183; Carolyn J. Weekley, Painters and Paintings in the Early American South (2013), 66-67.