Abigail Smith Babcock (Mrs. Adam Babcock)

c. 1774

John Singleton Copley

Painter, American, 1738 - 1815

John Singleton Copley

Attributed to

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.

Media Options

This object’s media is free and in the public domain. Read our full Open Access policy for images.
Information on this painting can be found in the Gallery publication American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century, pages 40-43, which is available as a free PDF https://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/research/publications/pdfs/american-paintings-18th-century.pdf
On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 60-B

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Gift of Mrs. Robert Low Bacon

  • Dimensions

    overall: 116.8 x 90.8 cm (46 x 35 3/4 in.)
    framed: 140.3 x 115.9 x 7 cm (55 1/4 x 45 5/8 x 2 3/4 in.)

  • Accession Number

    1985.20.1

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Edwin A. Blake [1847-1928], the sitter's great-grandson;[1] sold 1916 to (Macbeth Galleries, New York);[2] purchased 1917 by Alice Greenwood Chapman, Milwaukee [1853-1935];[3] repurchased by (Macbeth Gallery, New York); sold 25 February 1919 to Arthur Meeker [1866-1946], Chicago.[4] Fannie Morris Babcock Murray [Mrs. Henry Alexander Murray, 1858-1940], New York;[5] her daughter, Virginia Murray Bacon [Mrs. Robert Low Bacon, 1890-1980], Washington, D.C.;[6] gift 1985 to NGA.
[1] Stephen Babcock, Babcock Genealogy, New York, 1903: 219; Wilkins Updike, A History of the Episcopal Church in Narragansett, Rhode Island, 2nd ed., Boston, 1907: 2: v; on Blake see the Journal of the Eightieth Session of the New York East Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Bridgeport, Connecticut, 1928: 665-667. The painting shares most of its history with the portrait of Adam Babcock [NGA 1978.79.1].
[2] Macbeth Gallery Papers, Archives of American Art, Washington, correspondence with Arthur Meeker, 16 January 1919. See also "Copley Portraits Sold," The New York Times (30 December 1916).
[3] Macbeth Gallery Papers, Archives of American Art, Washington, correspondence with Miss Chapman, 14 January to 19 June 1917. Miss Chapman made a first payment on the portrait and its pendant of Mr. Babcock in January 1917, but she changed her mind about the purchase. On Miss Chapman, a Milwaukee art patron and collector, see the Milwaukee Journal for 27 April 1935 (obituary) and 12 May 1935.
[4] Meeker, vice-president of Armour & Co. and a collector of American art, is listed in Who Was Who in America 2 (1943-1950, fourth printing 1946), 367; his obituary is in The New York Times (6 February 1946): 23. This painting and eight other American portraits in his collection were illustrated in an article by Henry Van Horn, "Arts and Decoration," Town and Country 77, no. 3801 (20 February 1921): 22-30; the painting is discussed on 22 and reproduced on 29. Although he offered to sell the portraits back to Macbeth in June 1925, there is no record in the Macbeth Gallery papers that they were repurchased (Macbeth Gallery Papers, Archives of American Art, Correspondence).
[5] Babcock 1903, 520; obituary, The New York Times (3 June 1940): 15; Mrs. Murray was a descendant of the sitter's brother Henry Babcock. According to Barbara neville Parker and Anne Bolling Wheeler, John Singleton Copley, American Portraits, Boston, 1938: 30, she acquired the portrait about 1930.
[6] Babcock 1903, 520; obituary, The New York Times (26 February 1980), reprinted in The New York Times Biographical Service 11, no. 2 (February 1980): 161. Adrian Lamb painted a copy of this portrait in 1979.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1917

  • An Exhibition of Early American Paintings, Museum of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, 1917, no. 9.

1976

  • Copley, Stuart, West in America & England, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1976, no. 15.

1991

  • Ralph Earl: The Face of the Young Republic, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.; Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford; Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, 1991-1992, 104-106, no. 3.

1998

  • John Singleton Copley and Margaret Kemble Gage: Turkish Fashion in 18th-Century America, Timken Museum of Art, San Diego; Canton Museum of Art, Ohio, 1998-1999, no. 8, repro.

Bibliography

1903

  • Babcock, Stephen. Babcock Genealogy. New York, 1903: 67-68, repro. opp. 80.

1907

  • Updike, Wilkins. A History of the Episcopal Church in Narragansett, Rhode Island. 3 vols. 2nd ed. Boston, 1907: 2:v, repro. opp. 58.

1910

  • Bayley, Frank W. A Sketch of the Life and a List of Some of the Works of John Singleton Copley. Boston, 1910: 23.

1914

  • Letters & Papers of John Singleton Copley and Henry Pelham, 1739-1776. Boston, 1914. Reprint. New York, 1970: 313.

1915

  • Bayley, Frank W. The Life and Works of John Singleton Copley. Boston, 1915: 48.

1917

  • An Exhibition of Early American Paintings, Exh. cat. Museum of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, 1917: no. 9.

1930

  • Bolton, Theodore and Harry Lorin Binsse. "John Singleton Copley." The Antiquarian 15 (December 1930): 116.

1938

  • Parker, Barbara Neville and Anne Bolling Wheeler. John Singleton Copley, American Portraits in Oil, Pastel, and Miniature, with Biographical Sketches. Boston, 1938: 31, pl. 120.

1966

  • Prown, Jules David. John Singleton Copley, vol. 1. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966, pp. 92, 156-157, 208, fig. 334.

1969

  • Miller, Hope Ridings. Great Houses of Washington, D.C.. New York, 1969: repro. 154, 157.

1980

  • American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 135, repro.

  • Wilmerding, John. American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1980: 13

1988

  • Wilmerding, John. American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art. Rev. ed. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1988: 54, repro.

1991

  • Kornhauser, Elizabeth Mankin. Ralph Earl: The Face of the Young Republic. Exh. cat. National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.; Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford; Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth. New Haven, London, and Hartford, 1991-1992: 104-106, no. 3.

1992

  • American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 149, repro.

1995

  • Miles, Ellen G. American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1995: 40-43, color repro. 41.

Wikidata ID

Q20178636

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