Works by John Singleton Copley

John Singleton Copley painted Boston's merchant families down to the sheen of their satin, then moved to London in 1774 and added large history paintings of modern events.

In Mrs. George Watson, of 1765, a Boston merchant's wife in low-cut satin and lace holds a porcelain vase whose curves echo her own. For Mrs. Daniel Hubbard he took pose, gown and setting from a British print of a noblewoman and made the face and fabrics his own. His half-brother Henry Pelham leans at a table in A Boy with a Flying Squirrel, the animal on a gold chain beside a glass of water.

Copley sailed from Boston in 1774 and, after a tour of the Continent, settled in London; he never returned to America. Watson and the Shark, of 1778, was his first history painting in London: a naked youth floats on his back in Havana harbour as a shark opens its jaws, while men in a boat reach for him and one raises a long pole. Most works here are portraits, including pastels and several self-portraits.

Sources: Wikipedia, Smithsonian Institution, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Gallery of Art, Art Institute of Chicago.