John Wollaston

John Wollaston (1710-1775) was one of colonial British North America’s most prolific portrait painters. Wollaston was an Englishman who first arrived in New York in 1749. He painted colonists in New York, Philadelphia, Maryland, Virginia, and Charleston. Wollaston worked in Virginia from ca.1755 through 1757. His first signed painting from Virginia dates to 1755 at Wilton Plantation where he painted family portraits for William Randolph III. He was last documented in Virginia by a receipt from Martha Dandridge Custis in 1757. Wollaston worked in Charleston from 1765 to 1767 before he left the mainland colonies. There is evidence that he traveled to St. Kitt’s in the Caribbean before returning to England.

Portraits