John Singleton Copley

American, 1738 - 1815

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Two women reach for or touch the arm of a man wearing a uniform and standing next to a chestnut-brown horse in front of a deep landscape in this horizontal painting. All three people have pale skin with oval faces, rosy cheeks, long, straight noses, cleft chins, and their mouths are closed. The horse and man fill most of the right half of the composition. The horse’s back is as high as the man’s shoulder, and it stands with its rear angled to our right and its front legs behind the man. It turns its head to look off to our right, its black mane and tail flaring like blazes. The man rests his arm straight across the saddle on the horse’s back. He looks off to our left almost in profile, and his wavy gray hair is wind tousled. His vivid red jacket has silver epaulets, two rows of silver buttons down the front, a high, yellow collar, and yellow cuffs. A black band is wrapped around his neck over a white cloth, the upper edge of which is visible tucked up under his chin. A white strap holding a sword crosses his chest, and a dark rose-pink sash is tied over his coat, around his waist. The tail of the coat falls to his knees, and he wears ivory-white, tightly fitting breeches over knee-high black boots with silver spurs. He wears a pale yellow glove on the hand to our right, which rests on the horse, and holds the second glove and a black hat with the other hand. That arm angles slightly from his body toward the women. Up on a step, the woman closer to the man stands with her body facing us though she looks off to our right. She wears a black dress with elbow-length sleeves and a frilly white collar. Her brown hair is pulled up and back, and curls frame her face. She rests her left arm, to our right, on the man’s upper arm and holds a closed pine-green parasol with her other hand down in front of her body. The other woman stands with her body facing our right in profile, but she turns her face slightly to also look off to our right. She wears a white gown, head wrap, and long white veil. Brown curls peek out from under the head covering. She touches the veil with her left hand, farther from us, and reaches toward the man’s hand with her other. An oversized urn sits on a hip-high wall to the left of the women, and trees grow up the left edge of the painting. The distant landscape has sage-green hills, dark green trees, and rocky mountains along the horizon, which comes about a third of the way up the composition. Clouds create a diagonal and across the blue sky above, which transition to peach along the horizon.
John Singleton Copley, Colonel William Fitch and His Sisters Sarah and Ann Fitch, 1800/1801, oil on canvas, Gift of Eleanor Lothrop, Gordon Abbott, and Katharine A. Batchelder, 1960.4.1

Colonel William Fitch and His Sisters Sarah and Ann Fitch

John Singleton Copley · 1800/1801 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1960.4.1

A knight in armor strides toward two women wearing long gowns in a balustraded terrace in this horizontal painting. The three people all have smooth, pale skin with flushed cheeks. To our left, the man’s entire body is covered in armor except for his face under a raised visor. He has blue eyes, and his rose-red lips are slightly parted. His helmet is topped with a plume of white feathers. There is a red cross on his chest and red fabric wraps over his far shoulder and billows down his back to his shins. He holds a round shield edged in red up over his head with his far arm, and holds a lance down by his side with the hand closer to us. A sword hangs from his far hip, and he strides forward onto his other leg. He gazes to our right. In the right half of the composition, the two women stand facing each other. Both have long, curly gray hair, delicate noses, gray eyes under arched brows, and their coral-pink lips are parted. At the center of the painting, one woman, Fidelia, wears a long-sleeved, floor-length white gown tied at the waist with a butter-yellow sash. White cloth wraps around her head and through her hair, and it flutters behind her. She turns her head to look up and to our left, and her head is surrounded by a vibrant, yellow glow. In her right hand, closer to us, she holds up a gold chalice with a snake curling from the cup, its mouth open and tongue flicking out near her hair. She holds a brown book in her other hand, down in front of her hips. The second woman, Speranza, faces Fidelia but she looks up and to our left. Speranza’s topaz-blue, satin dress has a gauzy white collar and cuffs, and the skirt pools around her feet. A sky-blue ribbon wraps through Speranza’s hair. With her far hand, Speranza touches Fidelia’s wrist near the book. With her other hand, closer to us, Fidelia gathers her dress and braces the curving prongs of a silver anchor across that arm. The trio is framed by tall trees on the left and columns swathed with burgundy-red curtains on the right. A balustrade between the man in armor and woman in white is silhouetted against a salmon-pink sky along the horizon. A screen of white clouds float against the aquamarine-blue sky above.
John Singleton Copley, The Red Cross Knight, 1793, oil on canvas, Gift of Mrs. Gordon Dexter, 1942.4.2

The Red Cross Knight

John Singleton Copley · 1793 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1942.4.2

We look onto the side of a rowboat crowded with nine men trying to save a pale, nude young man who flails in the water in front of us as a shark approaches, mouth agape, from our right in this horizontal painting. In the water, the man floats with his chest facing the sky, his right arm overhead and the other stretched out by his side. Extending to our left, his left leg is bent and the right leg is straight, disappearing below the knee. His long blond hair swirls in the water and he arches his back, his wide-open eyes looking toward the shark behind him. To our right, the shark rolls up out of the water with its gaping jaws showing rows of pointed teeth. In the boat, eight of the men have light or tanned complexions, and one man has dark brown skin. The man with brown skin stands at the back center of the boat, and he holds one end of a rope, which falls across the boat and around the upper arm of the man in the water. Another man stands at the stern of the boat, to our right, poised with a long, hooked harpoon over the side of the boat, ready to strike the shark. His long dark hair blows back and he wears a navy-blue jacket with brass buttons, white breeches, blue stockings, and his shoes have silver buckles. Two other men wearing white shirts with blousy sleeves lean over the side of the boat, bracing each other as they reach toward the man in the water. An older, balding man holds the shirt and body of one of this pair and looks on, his mouth open. The other men hold long oars and look into the water with furrowed brows. The tip of a shark’s tail slices through the water to our right of the boat, near the right edge of the canvas. Along the horizon line, which comes three-quarters of the way up the composition, buildings and tall spires line the harbor. The masts of boats at port creates a row of crosses against the light blue sky. Steely gray clouds sweep across the upper left corner of the canvas and the sky lightens to pale, butter yellow at the horizon.
John Singleton Copley, Watson and the Shark, 1778, oil on canvas, Ferdinand Lammot Belin Fund, 1963.6.1

Watson and the Shark

John Singleton Copley · 1778 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1963.6.1

A group of three adults and four children are gathered on and around a couch in an interior space that opens out to a distant hilly landscape in this horizontal portrait painting. All seven people have pale skin and are clustered across the middle of the composition. To our left, an older man wearing a white wig, white cravat, and black jacket sits facing us as he holds a squirming baby on his lap. The man’s slightly tanned face is turned to gaze to our right with pale blue eyes under thick brown eyebrows. Jowls line his jaw around pursed lips. The child in his lap twists to look up at him. She holds up her pudgy arms, grasping a gold-colored rattle with bells in her left hand. She has blond hair, smooth skin, and rose-red lips, and she wears a long white gown with a petal-pink sash around the waist. Behind this pair a younger man stands with his body angled to our right in profile as he turns his face to look at us from the corners of his eyes, with a faint smile on his closed pink lips. He also wears a white cravat and black jacket, but his hair is dove gray. His forearms rest on a low, olive-green stone column in front of him, his hands crossed at the wrist as he holds papers in his right hand. To our right and at the center of the group, a young girl stands facing us with her arms crossed at her waist. A lacy, ivory cap frames tawny brown bangs that sweep across her forehead. Her petite nose, brown eyes, and rose-red lips are set within her round face. She wears an ivory-white gown belted with a sash that shimmers from pink to copper as it cascades down her right side, to our left. On her other side, the final trio includes a woman sitting with her arms entwined around two more small children. They sit on a cranberry-red, brocaded sofa. Her sapphire-blue gown has a voluminous skirt and is trimmed with gold stitching along its square neckline. The fabric gleams softly, suggesting silk. Her dark brown hair is piled high on her head, topped by a sheer white veil. Her body is angled toward us, but her head is turned in profile to our left, bowing to almost brush noses with the young child standing alongside her. Shoulder-length brown hair falls to the child’s shoulders as the head is tipped back to gaze at the woman with a wide smile. One arm reaches up and embraces the woman’s neck and the other rests on her knee. The child wears a butter-yellow gown with a white sash around the waist. The fourth and final child lies belly down across the red and copper bolster cushion of the couch so her elbows are propped on her mother’s lap. The child turns her head back to look at us with dark eyes and slight smile on her pale pink lips. Her blond hair falls down the back of her white gown, which is belted with a gold sash. A child’s doll and hat with a rounded crown, a narrow brim, and an indigo-blue feather rests in folds of the curtain on the floral-patterned carpet near the lower left corner of the painting. The scene is framed by rust-red drapery edged in gold hanging from the upper left. In the landscape seen through an opening behind the family, hills fade from sage green to slate blue, and they become more faint as they recede to the horizon, which comes about three-quarters of the way up this composition. The opening is framed with a flowering vine climbing the wall behind the woman.
John Singleton Copley, The Copley Family, 1776/1777, oil on canvas, Andrew W. Mellon Fund, 1961.7.1

The Copley Family

John Singleton Copley · 1776/1777 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1961.7.1

Shown from the knees up, a pale-skinned woman looking off to the left from her seat on a divan wears a carnation-pink gown and a fur-lined cloak in this vertical portrait painting. Her body is angled to our left, and she looks into the distance with close-set, large, gray-blue eyes. She has dark brows, a straight nose, a full lower lip, and a slight double chin in her long, oval face. Pewter-gray hair is brushed back from her high forehead and bound up under a loose swath of lace and pearls. Her loose gown is gathered under a gold, pearl-lined belt that follows the shape of her breasts along the top edge and is straight across the bottom edge. Tufts of snow-white cloth are pulled out at the neckline and at the elbow. The skirt falls loosely under the cloak, which is marine blue on the outside. The white fur interior is speckled with black, suggesting ermine. The woman holds two ends of what might be a bracelet made up of at least ten strands of fine, purple beads. Each end has a gold fitting, perhaps clasps. Her navy-blue seat curves from behind her shoulders down and across the background under a coffee bean-brown background. The woman is lit starkly from the left, throwing her ear and the far side of her face, to our right, into shadow.
John Singleton Copley, Abigail Smith Babcock (Mrs. Adam Babcock), c. 1774, oil on canvas, Gift of Mrs. Robert Low Bacon, 1985.20.1

Abigail Smith Babcock (Mrs. Adam Babcock)

John Singleton Copley · c. 1774 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1985.20.1

A pale-skinned, clean-shaven man with a heavily lined, paunchy face sits against a green and red wall in this vertical portrait painting. The man sits in a wooden chair painted forest green and rests both hands on the closer arm. His body and knees are angled to our left, and he turns his wide, square face to look at with heavy-lidded eyes. One brow seems slightly cocked, and he has a large nose. His lips are pulled up on one side over a round double chin. He wears a white, shoulder-length wig and a sable-brown suit. The cuffs of a white shirt are visible at his wrists where his hands are stacked on the arm of the chair. The knee-length breeches are buckled at the knee over black stockings. His legs are crossed away from us, and his feet extend off the bottom edge of the composition. The bottom half of the wall behind him is painted burgundy red up to and including a chair rail, and the wall above is moss green. The wall is lined with a gold scallop pattern along the top of the chair rail and a sliver of brown on across the bottom of the composition suggests a wood floor. The artist signed and dated the painting as if he had inscribed the red wall near the man’s knees, “John Singleton Copley pinx 1772. Boston.”
John Singleton Copley, Eleazer Tyng, 1772, oil on canvas, Gift of the Avalon Foundation, 1965.6.1

Eleazer Tyng

John Singleton Copley · 1772 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1965.6.1

John Singleton Copley, Thomas Amory II, c. 1770-1772, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase through the gifts of William Wilson Corcoran), 2014.79.14

Thomas Amory II

John Singleton Copley · c. 1770-1772 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2014.79.14

John Singleton Copley, Elizabeth Gray Otis (Mrs. Samuel Alleyne Otis), c. 1764, oil on canvas, Gift of the Honorable and Mrs. Robert H. Thayer, 1980.11.1

Elizabeth Gray Otis (Mrs. Samuel Alleyne Otis)

John Singleton Copley · c. 1764 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1980.11.1

Shown from the knees up, a woman wearing a shimmering teal-blue gown and holding a garland of flowers stands in front of columns and a landscape in this vertical portrait painting. The woman’s body faces us, but she turns her head slightly to our left as she looks at us with dark brown eyes. Her skin is pale, nearly the color white, and she has rosy cheeks. She has an oval face, a long, thin nose, the suggestion of a double chin, and her peach-colored lips are closed. Her brown hair is pulled back under a lacy cap, and she wears dime-sized sapphire earrings rimmed with gleaming silver or diamonds. A pendant with three round sapphires and a larger, teardrop-shaped gem hangs from a choker made of thumbprint-sized sapphires. The edges of a white bow, presumably tying her hair, curl to either side of her neck. Her tight-fitting bodice has a square, lace-edged neckline and white ribbons tied down the front. Long, lacy cuffs fall from elbow-length sleeves, and the full skirt falls in vertical folds from the cinched waist. The teal fabric has a sheen, suggesting silk or satin. A pink rose as well as white, yellow, orange, and blue flowers are tied to a pink ribbon to create a garland, which she holds with both hands. Tan-colored stone columns lining the painting to either side behind her are connected by a balustrade, all of which frames a view out to a tall, light green tree and a blue sky touched with pink along the horizon. A coral-pink curtain hangs in the top right corner.
John Singleton Copley, Anne Fairchild Bowler (Mrs. Metcalf Bowler), c. 1763, oil on canvas, Gift of Louise Alida Livingston, 1968.1.1

Anne Fairchild Bowler (Mrs. Metcalf Bowler)

John Singleton Copley · c. 1763 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1968.1.1

Shown from the knees up, and older, clean-shaven, pale-skinned man rests one elbow on a broken column in this vertical portrait painting. He rests on his right elbow, on our left, so his body creates a diagonal from the lower right to the top center of the composition. He looks at us with clear blue eyes under low brows. His fleshy cheeks are lightly flushed. Wrinkles line his mouth, which is closed in a slight smile. He has jowls and a double chin, and his face is marked with few flesh-colored bumps near his mouth and under one eye. Thick, white hair is brushed back from his forehead, and shoulder-length curls frame his wide face. His is lit from our left so the far side of his face is largely in shadow except for that eye. A strip of bright white fabric encircles his neck above the collar of his long, steel-gray coat. Only the bottom half of the buttons down the front are fastened. White ruffles line his wrists. A glimpse of a golden yellow garment and dark trousers are visible where the coat splits near the bottom of the painting. His left hand, to our right, is thrust into that coat pocket. The other elbow rests on the light brown stone column base on a tall pedestal, and he touches his midsection with those fingers. The left half of the background is dark brown and the right half opens onto a green tree silhouetted against a hazy-pink and aquamarine-blue sky.
John Singleton Copley, Epes Sargent, c. 1760, oil on canvas, Gift of the Avalon Foundation, 1959.4.1

Epes Sargent

John Singleton Copley · c. 1760 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1959.4.1

Bibliography

1914

  • Letters and Papers of John Singleton Copley and Henry Pelham, 1739-1776. Boston, 1914.

1966

  • Prown, Jules David. John Singleton Copley. 2 vols. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1966.

1981

  • Fairbrother, Trevor J. "John Singleton Copley's Use of British Mezzotints for his American Portraits: A Reappraisal Prompted by New Discoveries." Arts Magazine 55, no. 7 (March 1981): 122-130.

1984

  • Shank, J. W. "John Singleton Copley's Portraits: A Technical Study of Three Representative Examples." Journal of the American Institute for Conservation 23 (1984): 130-152.

1995

  • Miles, Ellen G. American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1995: 20-21.