Frances Parke Custis (1709-1744)

Family tradition identifies the subject and it descended in the Custis-Lee family. It bears stylistic similarities to the Jaquelin and Brodnax family portraits dated to the 1720s. Frances Parke Custis was the daughter of John and Frances Parke Custis. She married first, William Winch, and second, Captain Thomas Dansie. She had no surviving children.

Dimensions: 37 x 29 1/2 in. (93.98 x 74.93 cm.)

The subject is a young woman wearing a gold or light brown dress. A green drape is wrapped around her and fastened with jewels near her right hip. Her left elbow rests on a large stone urn filled with flowers. Her left hand holds up a pink rose near her face. The urn is carved with figures. She stands outdoors. A column and short wall are behind her. An inscription on the urn states the subject’s age is 14, but it is unclear if the inscription is original.

See: Carolyn J. Weekley, Painters and Paintings in the Early American South (2013), 92-94; Wayne Craven, Colonial American Portraiture (1986), 199-201.