Swedish born and French trained, Adolph Wertmuller escaped the French Revolution with a brief visit to the United States in 1796. That year, he painted Mary Hesselius (1739-1820). She wears her 57 years lightly in this small oval portrait still in its original frame. In his register of portraits, Wertmuller recorded finishing the image near Annapolis at “Primrose Hill” where Mary lived with her second husband, the artist John Hesselius (1728-1778), three of whose paintings hang in this gallery. Wertmuller returned permanently to America from Sweden in 1800, eventually becoming related to the Hesselius family through marriage. The portrait is thought to have been exhibited at the Peale Museum in the early 1820s. Like many portraits in the BMA collection, this one descended through the sitter’s family. It retains its original frame.