1 / 1

download image
This image is in the public domain. You can copy, modify and distribute this image, even for commercial purposes. Learn more about our image policies.

John Singleton Copley

The Death of the Earl of Chatham, 1779

Not on View

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 52.7 x 64.2 cm (20 3/4 x 25 1/4 in.)

framed: 79.7 x 91.6 x 6.7 cm (31 3/8 x 36 1/16 x 2 5/8 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Mrs. Gordon Dexter

Accession Number

1947.15.1

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 .

Inscription

lower right: JSCopley / 1779

Provenance

Possibly (Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 23 May 1865, no. 130, bought in).[1] (Henry Graves & Co., London).[2] Susan Greene Amory Dexter [Mrs. Franklin Gordon Dexter, 1840-1924], Boston, the artist's great-granddaughter;[3] her son, Gordon Dexter [1864-1937], Boston;[4] his widow, Isabella Hunnewell Dexter [c. 1871-1968], Boston;[5] gift 1947 to NGA.

[1] Catalogue of a valuable Assemblage of Chiefly Modern Pictures, and Drawings and Engravings and some capital copies from celebrated Italian Pictures: which will be sold by Auction ... on Tuesday, May 23, 1865, 9; Graves 1918, 1:149. According to Christie's records, the consignor was W. Bettle, 195, Bishopsgate, London; Jeremy Rex-Parkes, archivist, letter, 2 August 1991, in NGA curatorial files; the painting was bought in. Jules David Prown, John Singleton Copley 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1966), 2:438, incorrectly stated that lot 130 was purchased by James Anderdon, who in fact bought his two sketches at the H. Scott Trimmer sale (Christie's, 17 March 1860, lot 31) and the Lyndhurst sale (Christie's, 5 March 1864, lot 70). Those sketches are now owned by the Tate Gallery, London. Frank W. Bayley, A Sketch of the Life and a List of Some of the Works of John Singleton Copley (Boston, 1910), 34, erroneously claimed that the National Gallery's sketch was from the Lyndhurst sale.

[2] A printed label of Henry Graves & Co., 6 Pall Mall, London, inscribed with the number 765, is attached to the stretcher. Graves [1806-1892] was a dealer and print publisher in London from 1852; see Fritz Lugt, Les Marques de collections de dessins et d'estampes (Amsterdam, 1921), 195, 561; Supplément (The Hague, 1956), 160. His ownership of the painting is not otherwise documented or dated. He was probably also the buyer of Copley's Baron Graham (1942.4.1) at auction in 1878 in London, a painting he apparently sold to the artist's granddaughter, Martha Babcock Amory. Both Baron Graham and this oil sketch were later owned by her daughter, Susan Greene Amory Dexter.

[3] Bayley 1910, 34; Mrs. Dexter's birthdate is in John William Linzee, The Linzee Family of Great Britain and the United States of America (Boston, 1917), 2:781-782; her death date is in "Proceedings of the New England Historic Genealogical Society" (meeting of 1 April, 1925), The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 74 (July, 1925): 325.

[4] Dexter is listed in Who Was Who in America, vol. 1, 1897-1942 (Chicago, 1966), 320.

[5] Mrs. Dexter died at the age of 97 in New York City; obituary, The New York Times, 16 December 1968, 47.

Associated Names

Christie, Manson & Woods, Ltd.
Dexter, Gordon
Dexter, Gordon, Mrs.
Dexter, Susan Greene Amory
Henry Graves & Co.

Exhibition History

1949: American Paintings from the Collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1949.

1958: A Salute to William Pitt; An Exhibition of Art and Letters Honoring the First Earl of Chatham, Chatham College, Pittsburgh, 1958-1959, no. 8.

1965: John Singleton Copley, 1738-1815, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1965-1966, no. 71.

1968: The Age of Queen Charlotte 1744-1818, Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, North Carolina, 1968, no. 3.

1976: American Painting of the Revolutionary Period, Baltimore Museum of Art, 1976, no. 31.

1976: The Eye of Thomas Jefferson, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1976, no. 66.

1991: Zeichen der Freiheit: Das Bild der Republik in der Kunst des 16. bis 20. Jahrhunderts [Emblems of Liberty: The Image of the Republic in the Art of the 16th to the 20th Century], Kunstmuseum, Bern, Switzerland, 1991, no. 318, repro.

1993: Picturing History: American Painting 1770-1930, The IBM Gallery, New York; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Dallas Museum of Art; Center for the Fine Arts, Miami, 1993-1994, no. 22, repro.

2000: The Revolutionary War: Founding the New Nation, Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn Harbor, 2000, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

Bibliography

1910: Bayley, Frank W. A Sketch of the Life and a List of Some of the Works of John Singleton Copley. Boston, 1910: 34.

1915: Bayley, Frank W. The Life and Works of John Singleton Copley. Boston, 1915: 76.

1958: A Salute to William Pitt; An Exhibition of Art and Letters Honoring the First Earl of Chatham. Exh. cat. Chatham College, Pittsburgh, 1958-1959: no. 8.

1965: John Singleton Copley, 1738-1815. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1965-1966: no. 71.

1966: Prown, Jules David. John Singleton Copley, vol. 2. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966, pp. 275-291, 437-439, fig. 404, no. 578.

1968: The Age of Queen Charlotte 1744-1818. Exh. cat. Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, North Carolina, 1968: no. 3.

1970: American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 44, repro.

1975: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1975: 394, fig. 568, color repro.

1976: American Painting of the Revolutionary Period. Exh. cat. Baltimore Museum of Art, 1976: no. 31. [See Maryland Heritage - Five Baltimore Institutions Celebrate the American Bicentennial Baltimore, 1976: 74, repro.

1976: The Eye of Thomas Jefferson. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1976: no. 66.

1980: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 136, repro.

1981: Williams, William James. A Heritage of American Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1981: 31, color repro. 47.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 390, no. 553, color repro.

1991: Zeichen der Freiheit; Das Bild der Republik in der Kunst des 16. bis 20. Jahrhunderts. Exh. cat. Kunstmuseum, Bern, 1991: no. 318.

1992: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 151, 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: 71-76, repro. 73.