Skip to main contentBiographyJohn Singleton Copley was born in 1738, most likely in Boston. His parents were Irish immigrants who owned and managed a tobacco shop on Boston’s Long Wharf. Copley’s father died when he was quite young, and his mother married Peter Pelham, a mezzotint engraver. Watching his stepfather at work was likely Copley’s first exposure to art. It is also likely that Copley spent time copying the prints in his stepfather’s collection and possible that, through Pelham, he met the most prominent artists working in Boston at the time, John Smibert and Robert Feke. Copley was also naturally talented, and drafted his own study of human anatomy while still a teenager.
Although he was drawn to the dramatic and heroic subjects of history painting, Copley made a living by painting portraits. He had an innate ability to capture his sitters’ personalities, and he improved his ability to arrange figures and paint satin and lace by studying the example of Joseph Blackburn, a fashionable painter of portraits in the Rococo style. After Blackburn’s departure for Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1758, the twenty-year-old Copley found that his services as a portrait painter were much in demand.
It was at about this time that he painted the double portrait of Mary and Elizabeth Royall, a painting that shows the young artist’s astonishing stylistic maturity. The two sisters, ages approximately 13 and 11, are shown seated next to each other. Copley renders the sheen of their elegant gowns with striking verisimilitude. They are physically distinct from each other, a characteristic that earlier colonial artists had not managed to capture in family portraits. By including small animals (a hummingbird alights on Mary’s finger; a small spaniel gazes adoringly at Elizabeth’s face), Copley might have intended to suggest the girls’ nurturing characters—traits that would later make them desirable as wives and mothers. The wealthy and influential Royall family might have intended this painting to be the introduction of their girls into wider society.
Although portraits were his primary means of financial support, Copley had greater ambitions. In 1765, he painted his half-brother Henry Pelham in the famous Boy with a Squirrel. Henry is depicted in profile, seated at a table. He holds a gold chain, the end of which is fastened around the neck of a small squirrel. A glass of water has been placed before him. Copley intended the painting as a kind of diploma piece, evidence of his artistic skill and accomplishment; indeed, the reflections in the table’s glossy surface, the skillfully painted hands, the dreamy expression on the boy’s face all confirm Copley’s enormous talent. He sent the painting to the Society of Artists in London, hoping that the famed American expatriate artist Benjamin West would be favorably impressed. Although West was encouraging in his response to Copley, he also expressed his opinion that Copley’s painting style was too “liney,” too hard-edged with not enough modeling. Such an assessment may reflect Copley’s pragmatic, almost austere colonial style rather than a lack of skill.
Increasingly prolific and wealthy, Copley married Susanna Clarke in 1769 and purchased a substantial estate on Beacon Hill the following year. Susanna was the daughter of the principal agent for the British East India Company, and, as such, was firmly tied to a family loyal to the British crown at a time that many in the colonies were beginning to whisper of rebellion. Indeed, Copley painted several of the principal architects of that rebellion—Paul Revere in 1768, John Hancock circa 1770-72, and Samuel Adams at about the same time in a portrait that is decidedly political and palpably angry. Copley’s loyalties were torn. His brother Henry was supportive of the revolutionary cause, but his father-in-law and wife were loyal Royalists. As unrest grew, Copley found commissions diminishing. In 1774, he left for Europe, never to return to the country of his birth.
Copley spent a year traveling and studying in Italy before settling in London where he was joined by his family. In London, Copley enjoyed associating with the artists he had long admired from afar: Benjamin West, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and others. In 1776, he was elected an associate of the Royal Academy; he became a full member in 1779. In England, Copley at last realized his dream of painting grand historical subjects. His paintings The Death of the Earl of Chatham, The Death of Major Peirson, and, most notably, Watson and the Shark were much admired and favorably reviewed.
Unfortunately, the expense of maintaining an elegant lifestyle, legal troubles, fractious relationships with other members of the Royal Academy, and the deaths of children and other family members took their toll. Copley died following a stroke in 1815. Although he left his estate in debt and his reputation somewhat diminished, as soon as a generation later he was recognized and revered as one of America’s finest painters.
Dates and data adapted from: Rebora, Carrie, Paul Staiti, Erica Hirshler, Theodore E. Stebbins, and Carol Troyen. John Singleton Copley in America. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, distributed by Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1995.
John Singleton Copley
1738 - 1815
Although he was drawn to the dramatic and heroic subjects of history painting, Copley made a living by painting portraits. He had an innate ability to capture his sitters’ personalities, and he improved his ability to arrange figures and paint satin and lace by studying the example of Joseph Blackburn, a fashionable painter of portraits in the Rococo style. After Blackburn’s departure for Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1758, the twenty-year-old Copley found that his services as a portrait painter were much in demand.
It was at about this time that he painted the double portrait of Mary and Elizabeth Royall, a painting that shows the young artist’s astonishing stylistic maturity. The two sisters, ages approximately 13 and 11, are shown seated next to each other. Copley renders the sheen of their elegant gowns with striking verisimilitude. They are physically distinct from each other, a characteristic that earlier colonial artists had not managed to capture in family portraits. By including small animals (a hummingbird alights on Mary’s finger; a small spaniel gazes adoringly at Elizabeth’s face), Copley might have intended to suggest the girls’ nurturing characters—traits that would later make them desirable as wives and mothers. The wealthy and influential Royall family might have intended this painting to be the introduction of their girls into wider society.
Although portraits were his primary means of financial support, Copley had greater ambitions. In 1765, he painted his half-brother Henry Pelham in the famous Boy with a Squirrel. Henry is depicted in profile, seated at a table. He holds a gold chain, the end of which is fastened around the neck of a small squirrel. A glass of water has been placed before him. Copley intended the painting as a kind of diploma piece, evidence of his artistic skill and accomplishment; indeed, the reflections in the table’s glossy surface, the skillfully painted hands, the dreamy expression on the boy’s face all confirm Copley’s enormous talent. He sent the painting to the Society of Artists in London, hoping that the famed American expatriate artist Benjamin West would be favorably impressed. Although West was encouraging in his response to Copley, he also expressed his opinion that Copley’s painting style was too “liney,” too hard-edged with not enough modeling. Such an assessment may reflect Copley’s pragmatic, almost austere colonial style rather than a lack of skill.
Increasingly prolific and wealthy, Copley married Susanna Clarke in 1769 and purchased a substantial estate on Beacon Hill the following year. Susanna was the daughter of the principal agent for the British East India Company, and, as such, was firmly tied to a family loyal to the British crown at a time that many in the colonies were beginning to whisper of rebellion. Indeed, Copley painted several of the principal architects of that rebellion—Paul Revere in 1768, John Hancock circa 1770-72, and Samuel Adams at about the same time in a portrait that is decidedly political and palpably angry. Copley’s loyalties were torn. His brother Henry was supportive of the revolutionary cause, but his father-in-law and wife were loyal Royalists. As unrest grew, Copley found commissions diminishing. In 1774, he left for Europe, never to return to the country of his birth.
Copley spent a year traveling and studying in Italy before settling in London where he was joined by his family. In London, Copley enjoyed associating with the artists he had long admired from afar: Benjamin West, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and others. In 1776, he was elected an associate of the Royal Academy; he became a full member in 1779. In England, Copley at last realized his dream of painting grand historical subjects. His paintings The Death of the Earl of Chatham, The Death of Major Peirson, and, most notably, Watson and the Shark were much admired and favorably reviewed.
Unfortunately, the expense of maintaining an elegant lifestyle, legal troubles, fractious relationships with other members of the Royal Academy, and the deaths of children and other family members took their toll. Copley died following a stroke in 1815. Although he left his estate in debt and his reputation somewhat diminished, as soon as a generation later he was recognized and revered as one of America’s finest painters.
Dates and data adapted from: Rebora, Carrie, Paul Staiti, Erica Hirshler, Theodore E. Stebbins, and Carol Troyen. John Singleton Copley in America. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, distributed by Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1995.
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