Henry Fitzhugh (1687-1758)

Henry Fitzhugh was the son of William Fitzhugh (1651-1701) the emigrant. His wife was Susanna Cooke Fitzhugh. This  portrait, and Bedford, was inherited by his son, Henry Fitzhugh of Bedford. John Hesselius painted a copy of this portrait 5 years later for the subject’s younger son, John Fitzhugh of Belle Air.

Dimensions: 30 1/4 x 25 in. (76.84 x 63.5 cm.)

The subject wears a blue jacket and matching waistcoat. He also wear a white wig is angled toward his right. He appears inside of a painted oval frame. Inscribed on the back below relining: “Cap Henry Fitzhugh Son/ of Col Willm Fitzhugh AEtat 65/ 1751/ John Hefselius Pinx”

See: Carolyn J. Weekley, Painters and Paintings in the Early American South (2013), 256-259; Richard K. Doud, “The Fitzhugh Portraits by John Hesselius,” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 75, no. 2 (April 1967): 159-173; Wayne Craven, Colonial American Portraiture (1986), 367.