called Dorothea Spotswood Dandridge (Mrs. Nathaniel Dandridge, ca. 1728-1773)

Family tradition identifies the subject. The portrait has been attributed in the past to Charles Bridges; though the portrait’s restoration makes artist attribution difficult. However, if it is by Bridges, who only worked in Virginia from 1735-1745, the subject identification is questionable, though it could be another member of the Spotswood or Moore family, from whom it descended at Chelsea Plantation. Dorothea Spotswood was a daughter of Alexander Spotswood and Anne Butler Brayne Spotswood. She married Nathaniel Dandridge in 1747. Her sister, Anna Katherine Spotswood, married Bernard Moore, providing the means through which her portrait could have entered the Moore family’s collection at Chelsea.

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

The subject wears a reddish brown wrap dress with a dark blue trim and a greenish colors drape (or veil) around her shoulders and hair.  She is inside a painted oval frame. Her body is angled to her left but her head is turned towards her right.

See: Colonial Williamsburg eMuseum