John Singleton Copley

American, 1738 - 1815

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American painter (1738-1815)

Explore Selected Works

John Singleton Copley, Study for "The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar", 1783-1786, pen and brown ink with graphite on laid paper, Corcoran Collection (Gift of Mrs. Josephine Boardman Crane), 2015.19.873

Study for "The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar"

John Singleton Copley · 1783-1786 · pen and brown ink with graphite on laid paper ·  Accession ID  2015.19.873

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

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

John Singleton Copley, Study for "The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar", 1783-1786, graphite with white chalk on blue-gray laid paper, Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase), 2014.136.187

Study for "The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar"

John Singleton Copley · 1783-1786 · graphite with white chalk on blue-gray laid paper ·  Accession ID  2014.136.187

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.