Alice Thornton Fitzhugh (Mrs. John Fitzhugh, 1729-1790)

Alice Thornton Fitzhugh married John Fitzhugh of Belle Aire Plantation in Stafford County in 1746. She was the mother of Elizabeth Fitzhugh Conway.

Reference: “3 large family pictures” appear in husband’s probate inventory under “Household furniture,” 1809, Gunston Hall Probate Inventory Database. Original in Stafford County Deed Book AA, pp.19-21.

Dimensions: 30 x 25 in. (76.2 x 63.5 cm.)

The subject wears a blue dress with a jeweledge clasp. She is turned towards her right. She wears a white cap and and a two strand pearl necklace. Her right hold holds a white rose. She is inside a painted oval frame. A modern copy of an original inscription on the back reads: “Alice Wife of John Fitzhugh/Daughter of Rowland Thornton/AEtatis 22/John Hesselius Pinx/May 1751″

See: MESDA Database, S-5173; Richard K. Doud, “The Fitzhugh Portraits by John Hesselius,” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 75, no. 2 (April 1967): 159-173.