#johnsingletoncopley

The Return of Neptune, 1754, John Singleton Copley

Watson and the Shark, John Singleton Copley, ca. 1778, American Paintings and Sculpture

Gift of Mrs. Gordon Dexter, 1942 Size: 24 7/8 x 30 1/8 in. (63.2 x 76.5 cm) Medium: Oil on canvas

Portrait of Sarah Allen, née Sargent, John Singleton Copley, c. 1763, Minneapolis Institute of Art: Paintings

Three quarter-length portrait of a woman in a blue satin dress with broad flat hat, pulling on her glove. Nathaniel Allen was a member of the new wealthy class in the mercantile and shipping business in Boston, and his wife, Sarah, was 34 at the time this work was painted. When commissioning portraits, successful American colonists wished to be portrayed in the manner of European aristocrats. This was accomplished by copying contemporary English portraits of ladies and gentlemen of fashion. Here, Copley adapted his composition from a mezzotint after William Hogarth's painting of Frances, Lady Byron. John Singleton Copley was the first great internationally renowned American painter. This work belongs to his most prolific period between 1762 and 1770, and coincides with the emergence of revolutionary ideas in Boston. Largely self-taught, he was the first full-time painter in the colonies. Excelling at capturing texture and surface details, Copley was also known for his uncompromising realism, giving the same meticulous attention to both psychological and formal details. With no attempt at idealization, Mrs. Allen is presented as a masculine-looking woman, appearing sturdy and confident as she daintily pulls on her glove. Size: 49 1/2 x 40 in. (125.73 x 101.6 cm) (canvas) Medium: Oil on canvas

Figure Study for "Monmouth Before James II Refusing to Give the Names of His Accomplices", John Singleton Copley, c. 1795, Harvard Art Museums: Drawings

This is a study for the central figure in John Singleton Copley's oil painting "Monmouth Before James II," in the Harvard Art Museums's collection. See 1957.225. Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Louise E. Bettens Fund Size: 34.9 x 28.6 cm (13 3/4 x 11 1/4 in.) Medium: Black and white chalk over graphite on blue antique laid paper

Mrs. Sylvester (Abigail Pickman) Gardiner, John Singleton Copley, ca. 1772, Brooklyn Museum: American Art

Size: 50 3/8 x 40 in. (128 x 101.6 cm) frame: 58 1/4 x 49 1/2 x 3 1/2 in. (148 x 125.7 x 8.9 cm) Medium: Oil on canvas

Henry Laurens, John Singleton Copley, 1782, Smithsonian: National Portrait Gallery

Size: 137.5cm x 103cm (54 1/8" x 40 9/16"), Accurate Medium: Oil on canvas

Mrs. Daniel Hubbard (Mary Greene), John Singleton Copley, 1764, Art Institute of Chicago: American Art

John Singleton Copley was largely self-taught, his only formal training from his stepfather Peter Pelham, an English artist who specialized in mezzotint engraving. He nonetheless garnered considerable success as a portrait painter before the Revolutionary War. The sitter here, Mary Greene Hubbard, was a member of Boston’s merchant class (Copley’s portrait of her husband, Daniel Hubbard [1947.27], is also in the Art Institute collection). Her pose, gown, and background were precisely copied from a British engraving of a noblewoman, yet Copley distinguished the work as his own by capturing the figure’s individual features as well as the surfaces and colors of the luxurious fabrics. A decade later, he left colonial Massachusetts for England to further his career and simultaneously escape the strong political divides among family, friends, and patrons amid the impending Revolution. Art Institute of Chicago Purchase Fund Size: 127.6 × 100.9 cm (50 1/4 × 39 3/4 in.) Medium: Oil on canvas

The Red Cross Knight, 1793, John Singleton Copley