Mrs. Finney’s pose holding a flower and resting her arm on a pedestal is probably adapted from an English mezzotint after a portrait by Sir Peter Lely or another court painter. This device was popular in the colonies prior to the American revolution; the artist had a model to use by which his client could associate herself with the British aristocracy and which gave him the basic composition for his painting.

In Anna Dorothea’s portrait, Hesselius has demonstrated his ability to depict convincingly the texture of the satin. This type of painting represents the last phase of the baroque portrait in America. The lighter palette and more casual pose of the rococo had been introduced by Englishman Joseph Blackburn in the mid 1750’s and was just beginning to be noticeable in the work of Bostonian John Singleton Copley at the time Hesselius painted Mrs. Finney.