Martha Washington

Born New Kent County, Virginia In 1749, Martha Dandridge married Daniel Parke Custis, the wealthiest planter in the colony. Seven years and four children later, she was a very wealthy widow. She married George Washington in 1759, pulling him upward in Virginia’s social and economic strata. She also brought to the marriage 84 enslaved people, who, as part of the Custis estate, would not be freed when George Washington freed his own slaves at the end of his life. Martha Washington was influential in setting the atmosphere and tone of her husband’s presidency, which was important to the new republic. Rembrandt Peale based this work on a portrait of 1795 by his father, Charles Willson Peale, adding a “porthole” as he had in his George Washington, on view across the room.