Jonathan Prown
John Singleton Copley’s Furniture and the Art of Invention

American Furniture 2004

Full Article
Contents
  • Figure 1
    Figure 1

    John Singleton Copley, Reverend Edward Holyoke, Boston, Massachusetts, 1759–1761. Oil on canvas. 50 1/2" x 40 1/2". (Courtesy, Harvard University Portrait Collection, Cambridge, Massachusetts, given to Harvard College by Mrs. Turner and Mrs. Ward, granddaughters of Edward Holyoke, 1829.)

  • Figure 2
    Figure 2

    John Singleton Copley, John Bours, Boston, Massachusetts, ca. 1761. Oil on canvas. 50 1/4" x 40 1/4". (Courtesy, Worcester Art Museum.)

  • Figure 3
    Figure 3

    Corner chair, Newport, Rhode Island, ca. 1765. Mahogany with maple and pine. H. 34", W. 30", D. 25". (Courtesy, Rhode Island School of Design.) www.risd.edu

  • Figure 4
    Figure 4

    Side chair, Boston, Massachusetts, ca. 1740. Walnut and walnut veneer with maple and white pine. H. 38 5/8", W. 20 3/4", D. 18 1/2". (Chipstone Foundation; photo, Gavin Ashworth.)

  • Figure 5
    Figure 5

    John Singleton Copley, Eleazer Tyng, Boston, Massachusetts, 1772. Oil on canvas. 49 3/4" x 40 1/8". (Courtesy, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., gift of the Avalon Foundation.)

  • Figure 6
    Figure 6

    John Singleton Copley, Reverend Thomas Cary, Boston, Massachusetts, ca. 1770–1773. Oil on canvas. 50" x 40 1/4". (Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, gift of Mrs. Richard Cary Curtis.)

  • Figure 7
    Figure 7

    John Singleton Copley, Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Winslow (Jemima Debuke), Boston, Massachusetts, 1773. Oil on canvas. 40 1/2" x 48 3/4". (Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Maxim Karolik for the M. and M. Karolik Collection of Eighteenth-Century American Arts.)

  • Figure 8
    Figure 8

    Anonymous, Robert Reid’s Studio, ca. 1890. Photographic copy print. (Courtesy, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.)

  • Figure 9
    Figure 9

    John Singleton Copley, Joseph Sherburne, Boston, Massachusetts, ca. 1767. Oil on canvas. 50" x 40". (Courtesy, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Amelia B. Lazarus Fund, 1923 (23.143) Photograph © 1991 The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

  • Figure 10
    Figure 10

    John Singleton Copley, William Vassall and His Son Leonard, Boston, Massachusetts, ca. 1770–1772. Oil on canvas. 49 7/8" x 40 7/8". (Courtesy, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, gift of Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller III.)

  • Figure 11
    Figure 11

    Side chair attributed to George Bright, Boston, Massachusetts, ca. 1765. Mahogany and maple. (Courtesy, Historic New England; photographed by Richard Cheek.)

  • Figure 12
    Figure 12

    John Singleton Copley, Mrs. Timothy Rogers (Lucy Boylston), Boston, Massachusetts, ca. 1766–1767. Oil on canvas. 50" x 40". (Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, bequest of Barbara Boylston Bean.)

  • Figure 13
    Figure 13

    John Singleton Copley, Jonathan Belcher, Boston, Massachusetts, 1756. Oil on canvas. 47" x 39". (Courtesy, Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada.)

  • Figure 14
    Figure 14

    John Faber Jr. after Thomas Hudson, The Honourable William Fortesque, London, England, 1741. Mezzotint. 14 1/4" x 10 1/8". (Courtesy, National Portrait Gallery, London.) www.npg.org.uk

  • Figure 15
    Figure 15

    John Singleton Copley, Mrs. Daniel Rea and Her Daughter, Boston, Massachusetts, ca. 1757. Oil on canvas. 49" x 39". (Courtesy, Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio.)

  • Figure 16
    Figure 16

    John Singleton Copley, The Two Sisters of Christopher Gore, Boston, Massachusetts, ca. 1755. Oil on canvas. 29 1/2" x 39 1/2". (Courtesy, Gore Place Society, Waltham, Massachusetts.)

  • Figure 17
    Figure 17

    John Faber Jr. after J. B. Van Loo, Alexander Pope, 1742. Mezzotint. 12 1/8" x 10". (Courtesy, Trustees of the British Museum, London.) © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

  • Figure 18
    Figure 18

    John Smibert, Sir Francis Grant and His Family, Edinburgh, 1718. Oil on canvas. 85" x 125". (In a Private Scottish Collection.)

  • Figure 19
    Figure 19

    John Smibert, Sir Francis Grant and His Family, Edinburgh, 1718. Oil on canvas. 17" x 27 3/4". (In a Private Scotish Collection.)

  • Figure 20
    Figure 20

    John Smibert, Benjamin Morland, London, 1724. Oil on canvas. 95 1/4" x 59". (Courtesy, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.)

  • Figure 21
    Figure 21

    John Smibert, George Berkeley, London, ca. 1726. Oil on canvas. 41" x 29 1/2". (Courtesy, National Portrait Gallery, London.) www.npg.org.uk

  • Figure 22
    Figure 22

    John Smibert, Mrs. Hugh Hall, Boston, 1733. Oil on canvas. 50 1/8" x 40 1/8". (Courtesy, Denver Art Museum.)

  • Figure 23
    Figure 23

    John Smibert, Daniel Oliver, Boston, 1729. Oil on canvas. 50" x 39 1/8". (Collection of Andrew Oliver Jr., Daniel Oliver, Mrs. Daniel Morley.)

  • Figure 24
    Figure 24

    George Vertue, Self-Portrait, London, 1741. Drawing in pencil and red chalk. 9 1/4" x 5 1/2". (Courtesy, National Portrait Gallery, London.) www.npg.org.uk

  • Figure 25
    Figure 25

    George Vertue after John Vanderbank, Sir Isaac Newton, London, 1726. Engraving on paper. 8 5/8" x 7 1/4". (Courtesy, National Portrait Gallery, London.) www.npg.org.uk

  • Figure 26
    Figure 26

    Joseph Badger, Cornelius Waldo, Boston, 1750. Oil on canvas. 50" x 40". (Courtesy, Worcester Art Museum, Gift of Hester Newton Wetherell Estate.)

  • Figure 27
    Figure 27

    John Smibert, Francis Brinley, Boston, 1729. Oil on canvas. 50" x 39 1/4". (Courtesy, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1962 (62.79.1)Photograph © 1991The Metropolitan Museum of Art )

  • Figure 28
    Figure 28

    John Smibert, Mrs. Francis Brinley, Boston, 1729. Oil on canvas, 50" x 39 1/4". (Courtesy, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1962 (62.79.2) Photograph © The Metropolitan Museum of Art.)

  • Figure 29
    Figure 29

    John Singleton Copley, Charles Pelham, Boston, Massachusetts, ca. 1753–1754. Oil on canvas. 36" x 28". (Private collection.)

  • Figure 30
    Figure 30

    John Singleton Copley, Daniel Hubbard, Boston, Massachusetts, 1764. Oil on canvas. 50" x 39 3/4". (Courtesy, Art Institute of Chicago, Purchase Fund.)

  • Figure 31
    Figure 31

    John Singleton Copley, John Hancock, Boston, Massachusetts, 1765. Oil on canvas. 49 1/2" x 40 1/2". (Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, deposited by the City of Boston.)

  • Figure 32
    Figure 32

    John Singleton Copley, Thomas Greene, Boston, Massachusetts, 1758. Oil on canvas. 50" x 40". (Courtesy, Cincinnati Art Museum, gift of Mrs. Carlos A. Hepp.)

  • Figure 33
    Figure 33

    John Singleton Copley, Nicholas Boylston, Boston, Massachusetts, 1767. Oil on canvas. 49" x 40". (Courtesy, Harvard University Portrait Collection, Cambridge, Massachusetts, bequest of Ward Nicholas Boylston, 1828.) The sitter wears a cut-velvet cap that matches the table covering.

  • Figure 34
    Figure 34

    Sir Anthony Van Dyck, Charles I, Queen Henrietta Maria, Prince Charles, and Princess Mary, London, 1632. Oil on canvas. Dimensions not recorded. (Courtesy, The Royal Collection ©, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, London, England.)

  • Figure 35
    Figure 35

    Peter Tillemans, An Artist’s Studio, London, ca. 1716. Oil on canvas. Dimensions not recorded. (Castle Museum, Norwich, England.)

  • Figure 36
    Figure 36

    John Singleton Copley, Miles Sherbrook, New York, ca. 1771. Oil on canvas, 49 1/2" x 39". (Courtesy, Chrysler Museum of Art, gift of Walter P. Chrysler Jr., in memory of his grandparents, Anna-Maria Breymann and Henry Chrysler.)

  • Figure 37
    Figure 37

    John Singleton Copley, John Greene, Boston, Massachusetts, ca. 1769. Oil on canvas. 49 1/8" x 39 1/2". (Courtesy, Currier Art Museum, Manchester, New Hampshire, Museum Purchase: Currier Funds, 1935.4.)

  • Figure 38
    Figure 38

    John Singleton Copley, Mary and Elizabeth Royall, Boston, Massachusetts, ca. 1758. Oil on canvas. 57 1/2" x 48". (Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Julia Knight Fox Fund, 1925.)

  • Figure 39
    Figure 39

    John Singleton Copley, Epes Sargent, Boston, Massachusetts, ca. 1760. Oil on canvas, 49 7/8" x 40". (Courtesy, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., gift of the Avalon Foundation.)

  • Figure 40
    Figure 40

    John Singleton Copley, Mrs. William Eppes (Abigail Pickman; later Mrs. Sylvester Gardiner), ca. 1769. Oil on canvas. 50" x 40". (Courtesy, Brooklyn Museum.)

  • Figure 41
    Figure 41

    Painting, printed and sold for F. Bull on Ludgate Hill, J. Boydell in Cheapside, and W. Herbert on London Bridge, 1766–1775. Line etching. 9 3/4" x 13 3/4". (Courtesy, Winterthur Museum.)

  • Figure 42
    Figure 42

    John Singleton Copley, Mrs. Thomas Gage (Margaret Kemble), New York, 1771. Oil on canvas. 50" x 40". (Courtesy, Putnam Foundation, Timken Museum of Art.) www.timekenmuseum.org

  • Figure 43
    Figure 43

    John Singleton Copley, Portrait of a Lady, New York, 1771. Oil on canvas. 48 1/2" x 39 1/2". (Courtesy, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum Acquisition Fund.)

  • Figure 44
    Figure 44

    Titian (Tiziano Vecelli), Venus of Urbino, Venice, 1504. Oil on canvas. 46 3/4" x 64 7/8". (Uffizi, Florence, Italy, Alinari Art Resource, New York.)

  • Figure 45
    Figure 45

    John Singleton Copley, Dorothy Quincy, Boston, Massachusetts, ca. 1772. Oil on canvas. 50" x 39". (Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Charles H. Bailey Fund and partial gift of Anne B. Loring.)

  • Figure 46
    Figure 46

    John Singleton Copley, Mrs. John Powell, Boston, Massachusetts, ca. 1764. Oil on canvas. 50" x 40". (Courtesy, Cleveland Museum of Art, gift of Ellery Sedgwick Jr., in memory of Mabel Cabot Sedgwick, 1994.)

  • Figure 47
    Figure 47

    John Singleton Copley, Reverend John Ogilvie, New York, 1771. Oil on canvas. 50" x 40". (Courtesy, Trinity Church, New York.)

  • Figure 48
    Figure 48

    John Singleton Copley, Moses Gill, Boston, Massachusetts, 1764. Oil on canvas. 49 3/4" x 39 1/2". (Courtesy, Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Jesse Metcalf Fund; photography by Erik Gould) www.risd.edu

  • Figure 49
    Figure 49

    John Singleton Copley, Robert Hooper, Boston, Massachusetts, 1767. Oil on canvas. 50" x 39 1/4". (Courtesy, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Henry S. McNeil Collection, given in loving memory of her husband by Lois F. McNeil and in honor of their parents by Barbara and Henry A. Jordan, Marjorie M. Findlay, and Robert D. McNeil.)

  • Figure 50
    Figure 50

    John Singleton Copley, Paul Revere, Boston, Massachusetts, 1768. Oil on canvas. 35" x 28 1/2". (Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, gift of Joseph W. Revere, William B. Revere, and Edward H. R. Revere.)

  • Figure 51
    Figure 51

    John Faber Jr., St. John, Apostle and Evangelist, 1754. Mezzotint, 12 3/4" x 8 3/4". (Courtesy, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts.)

  • Figure 52
    Figure 52

    John Singleton Copley, Thomas Hancock, Boston, Massachusetts, 1764–1766. Oil on canvas. 95 5/8" x 59 1/2". (Courtesy, Harvard University Portrait Collection, Cambridge, Massachusetts, given by John Hancock, nephew of Thomas Hancock, to Harvard College, 1766.)

  • Figure 53
    Figure 53

    John Singleton Copley, Jeremiah Lee, Boston, Massachusetts, ca. 1769. Oil on canvas. 95" x 59". (Courtesy, Wadsworth Atheneum, Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund.)

  • Figure 54
    Figure 54

    John Faber Jr. after John Vanderbank, Sir William Lee, London, 1738. Mezzotint, 18 5/8" x 13 3/4". (Courtesy, Trustees of the British Museum, London.) © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

  • Figure 55
    Figure 55

    The Prodigal Son Receiving His Patrimony, published and sold by Shelton & Kensett, Cheshire, England, 1814. Line etching. 14 3/4" x 10 7/8". (Courtesy, Winterthur Museum.) The cartoonish chair in this image resembles the one in Copley’s portrait of Thomas Hancock (see fig. 52).

  • Figure 56
    Figure 56

    John Singleton Copley, Mrs. Seymour Fort(?), London, ca. 1778. Oil on canvas. 49 1/2" x 39 5/8". (Courtesy, Wadsworth Atheneum.)

  • Figure 57
    Figure 57

    John Singleton Copley, The Copley Family, 1776/1777. Oil on canvas. 72 1/2" x 90 1/4". (Courtesy, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Andrew W. Mellon Fund.)

  • Figure 58
    Figure 58

    John Singleton Copley, The Copley Family, ca. 1788. Oil on canvas. 20 1/2" x 25 1/2". (Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Henry H. and Zoe Oliver Sherman Fund and gift of Daniel and Robert Amory.)

  • Figure 59
    Figure 59

    Joseph Steward, Reverend Eleazar Wheelock, Hampton, Connecticut, 1793–1796. Oil on canvas. 79 1/8" x 69 7/8". (Courtesy, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Commissioned by the Trustees of Dartmouth College.)

  • Figure 60
    Figure 60

    Ralph Earl, Martha Tennent Rogers and Daughter, Hartford, Connecticut, 1788. Oil on canvas. 34 1/8" x 29". (Courtesy, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch.)

  • Figure 61
    Figure 61

    Ralph Earl, Mrs. Alexander Hamilton, New York, 1787. Oil on canvas. 31 3/4" x 26 7/8". (Courtesy, Museum of the City of New York, gift of Mrs. Alexander Hamilton and General Pierpont Morgan Hamilton.)

  • Figure 62
    Figure 62

    John Trumbull, The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776, New York and London, 1787–1820. Oil on canvas. 21 1/8" x 31 1/8". (Courtesy, Yale University Art Gallery.)