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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.

The Copley Family, 1776/1777

John Singleton Copley

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 59

Fleeing the violence of the American Revolution, John Singleton Copley and his family settled in London in 1775. While Copley (standing at top left) tried to remain neutral, his father-in-law Richard Clarke (seated in front of the artist) supported the British. This group portrait suggests domestic harmony despite the political turmoil. The floral patterns on the rug and sofa blend smoothly into the peaceful landscape.

The Copley Family was first exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 1777. It both raised the profile of the family in British society and advertised the artist’s remarkable skill.

Dive deeper

In June 1774, when he was already thirty-five years old, Copley decided that he must go to Europe. Although he intended to stay abroad just long enough to acquire artistic sophistication, the American Revolution changed his plans. Studying in Rome and stopping in many continental cities, Copley arrived in London in October 1775. There he was joined by his wife, children, and father-in-law, Richard Clarke, one of the Tory merchants whose investments had been dumped overboard at the Boston Tea Party.

In I777 at the Royal Academy, Copley exhibited The Copley Family, which records his delight at being reunited with his family. The artist portrayed himself turning away from a sheaf of his sketches to look at the spectator. His wife, Susanna, leans forward to hug their four-year-old son, John Junior. Mary, who was a year younger than her brother, lies on the sofa, while Betsy, aged six and the eldest of the children, stands with a serious aplomb indicative of her seniority. The baby, Susanna, tries to attract her grandfather's attention with a rattle. The background is fanciful; no carpeted room ever merged so ambiguously into a forest glen. Copley's contemporaries would have understood the idyllic landscape as a reference to the family's natural simplicity and the elaborate furnishings as an indication of their civilized propriety.

More information on this painting can be found in the Gallery publication American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century, pages 46-54, which is available as a free PDF.

Object Data

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 184.1 x 229.2 cm (72 1/2 x 90 1/4 in.)

framed: 226.1 x 271.8 x 13.9 cm (89 x 107 x 5 1/2 in.)

Credit Line

Andrew W. Mellon Fund

Accession Number

1961.7.1

Artists / Makers

John Singleton Copley (painter) American, 1738 - 1815

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Detail Information

Provenance

The artist; his son, John Singleton Copley, Jr., Lord Lyndhurst [1772-1863], London; (his sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 5 March 1864, no. 91); bought by "Clarke" for the artist's granddaughter, Martha Babcock Greene Amory [Mrs. Charles Amory, 1812-1880], Boston;[1] her husband, Charles Amory [1808-1898], Boston;[2] their son, Edward Linzee Amory [1844-1911], New York;[3] his nephew, Copley Amory [1866-1960], Washington,[4] to his descendants, Copley Amory, Jr. [1890-1964], Cambridge, Massachusetts,[5] Henry Russell Amory [1892 1962], Santa Barbara, California, Katharine Amory Smith [b. 1908], Washington, Walter Amory [b. 1924], Duxbury, Massachusetts, and Elizabeth Cole Amory [b. 1955], Princeton, New Jersey;[6] sold 1961 to NGA.

[1] The annotated copy of Christie's Catalogue of the Very Valuable Collection of Pictures, of the Rt. Hon. Lord Lyndhurst, deceased at the Boston Atheneum indicates that "Clarke" was the purchaser, as does The Art-Journal, London, 1 April 1864, 120. The initials BA that are entered next to the lot number indicate that it was purchased for Martha Babcock Amory. George Redford, Art Sales, 2 vols. (London, 1888), 2: 20, thought the painting was bought in, but James Hughes Anderdon, who was at the sale, noted in his copy of the catalogue (Royal Academy) that there was a round of applause after the painting was auctioned [Jules David Prown, John Singleton Copley 2 vols. (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1966), 2:404]. News of the sale appeared in the (Boston) Daily Advertiser, 19 March 1864. For Mrs. Amory's dates see John William Linzee, The Linzee Family of Great Britain and the United States of America, 2 vols. (Boston, 1917), 2:766.

[2] For Charles Amory's dates see Linzee 1917, 2:766; he placed the painting on loan at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

[3] Edward Linzee Amory continued the loan of the painting to the Museum of Fine Arts from 1898; his dates are in Linzee 1917, 2:766.

[4] For Copley Amory's dates see Linzee 1917, 2:795, and The New York Times, 18 April 1960, 29 (obituary).

[5] The birth date of Copley Amory, Jr. is in Linzee 1917, 2:796; his death date was provided by Walter Amory, 19 November 1990, to Ellen Miles.

[6] Birth and death dates are from Linzee 1917, 2:796, or have been provided by family members.

Associated Names

Amory, Charles
Amory, Copley
Amory, Edward Linzee
Amory, Elizabeth Cole
Amory, Henry Russell
Amory, Jr., Copley
Amory, Martha Babcock Greene
Amory, Walter
Christie, Manson & Woods, Ltd.
Clarke
Copley, John Singleton
Copley, Jr., John Singleton
Smith, Katharine Amory