Joyce Armistead Booth (Mrs. Mordecai Booth, 1710-1770)

Joyce, sometimes called Judith, was the mother of George Booth. She was the daughter of William Armistead of Hesse. Her portrait was probably painted in Gloucester. The subject lived at Ware Neck.

Dimensions: 50 1/4 x 39 ½ in. (127.63 x 100.33 cm.).

The subject wears a blue dress with gold ruffles on her bodice. She sits in a red upholstered chair. Her left handholds a white kerchief up to her face, her right holds what appears to be a gold snuffbox. A book rests on top of the table. Her left elbow rests on a marble slab table with carvings. A red curtain with gold fridge and tassels hangs on the left of the canvas.

See: Graham Hood, Charles Bridges and William Dering: Two Virginia Painters, 1735-1750 (1978), 103-109; Carolyn J. Weekley, Paintings and Paintings in the Early American South (2013), 191; Colonial Williamsburg eMuseum