Notes
This portrait depicts Anne Butler Brayne Spotswood (1704–1758), wife of Lieutenant Governor Alexander Spotswood (1676–1740). His portrait is also in the Red Hill collection (2021.19.1).
Anne Butler Brayne married Alexander Spotswood in England in 1724 and immigrated to Virginia in 1729. The couple settled at Germanna. She was the daughter of a London esquire and the godchild of James Butler, 2nd Duke of Ormond (1665–1745). Anne had four children. Dorothea Dandridge (1757–1831), the second wife of Patrick Henry, is a granddaughter of the Spotswoods.
The portrait is an early to mid-19th-century copy of an original 18th-century painting. An unknown artist completed the original portrait of Anne Brayne at an unknown date. It is unclear whether she was painted in England or Virginia. If she was painted in Virginia, it is possible that Charles Bridges (1672–1747) completed this work along with her husband's portrait in 1736. Unfortunately, the original picture of Anne was lost in the 1926 fire at the Virginia Executive Mansion. A copy of Anne’s portrait by Emma M. Whitfield (1874–1932) is in the collection of the Library of Virginia.
Little is known about this work. Several other copies of Anne's portrait are known to exist because of the Spotswood family's importance in Virginia’s colonial history. Most copies date to the 19th century, when the U.S. was experiencing renewed interest in its colonial past, coinciding with the centennial of the country in 1876. The portrait in the Red Hill collection dates closer to 1825 based on early 20th-century repairs using a wax lining method, but who commissioned them remains a mystery.
The painting appears in a photograph of the entrance hall inside the Red Hill mansion around 1912. At this time, both Anne's and her husband's paintings were owned by the great-granddaughter of Patrick Henry, Lucy Gray Henry Harrison (1857–1944). In 1919, the mansion burned down, and these paintings were possibly saved from destruction. It is assumed the portraits left the property after the fire and were dispersed to other Henry family members.
The portraits were donated by Margaret Henry Ottarson (1911–1981) in 1977 to the Patrick Henry Boys Plantation, which later placed them on long-term loan to Red Hill from 1979 to 2020. Upon the closure of the Boys Plantation in late 2020, these paintings were transferred permanently to Red Hill.