a portraitist who worked mostly in Virginia and Maryland. He was the son of the Swedish-born portraitist Gustavus Hesselius. John Hesselius worked "exclusively in the late English Baroque and English Rococo traditions, and always used oil on canvas." Hesselius' works often lack warmth, containing generic, repetitive facial features. His early portraits show difficulty in accurately depicting human anatomy, particularly in the hands and noses of his subjects.
