Rebecca Bonum Eskridge (d. 1715)

This portrait is identified as Rebecca Bonum based on her husband’s probate inventory, which identifies the subject as his “former wife.” Her husband, George Eskridge, married a second time after her death. She died in 1715. It shares stylistic similarities with portraits of Lyde, Corbin, and Tayloe family members. The portrait descended in the family and appears to have stayed at Sandy Point until the late eighteenth century.

Reference: The Inventory of George Eskridge states that “in the Hall” are “2 Pictures of Col. Eskridge and former wife.” Quoted in object file at the Virginia Historical Society.

Dimensions: 26 x 21 in. (66.04 x 53.34 cm.)

The subject wears a rust colored dress with black trim and a dark drape. She has pearls and jeweled embellishments at her neckline and sleeve. She is inside a painted oval frame.

See: Carolyn J. Weekley, Painters and Paintings in the Early American South (2013), 82.