Peyton Randolph (1721-1775)

Peyton Randolph was the son of Sir John Randolph and Susannah Beverley Randolph. He married Elizabeth Harrison of Berkeley. They lived in Williamsburg. There is another portrait believed to represent this subject by John Wollaston.

Charles Willson Peale painted a full-length portrait of Peyton Randolph in the Masonic sash and jewels and other accouterments for the Masonic Lodge in Williamsburg, of which he was named the Grand Master in 1774. The portrait was destroyed by a fire at the Library of Congress. Randolph was later elected the first President of the Continental Congress and multiple smaller versions of his portrait were commissioned from Peale following Randolph’s death in Philadelphia in 1775.

See: Charles Coleman Sellers, “Portraits and Miniatures by Charles Willson Peale,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 42 (1952): 177-178.