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John Singleton Copley

Colonel William Fitch and His Sisters Sarah and Ann Fitch, 1800/1801

West Building, Main Floor — North Stair Landing East

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 257.8 x 340.4 cm (101 1/2 x 134 in.)

framed: 283.9 x 365.8 x 11.1 cm (111 3/4 x 144 x 4 3/8 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Eleanor Lothrop, Gordon Abbott, and Katharine A. Batchelder

Accession Number

1960.4.1

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 .

Overview

Information on this painting can be found in the Gallery publication American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century, pages 81-87, which is available as a free PDF https://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/research/publications/pdfs/american-paintings-18th-century.pdf

Provenance

Dr. James Lloyd [1728-1810], Boston, or his son, James Lloyd [1769-1831], Boston;[1] John Borland [1792-1876], Boston, nephew of James Lloyd;[2] his sons, John Nelson Borland [1828-1890] and M. Woolsey Borland [1824-1909], who bought his brother's share;[3] his granddaughter, Katharine Tiffany Abbott [Mrs. Gordon Abbott, 1872-1948], Boston; her children, Katharine Abbott Batchelder [Mrs. George L. Batchelder, 1899-1977], Beverly, Massachusetts, Gordon Abbott [1904-1973], Manchester, Massachusetts, and Eleanor Abbott Lothrop [Mrs. Francis B. Lothrop, 1900-1992], Boston; gift 1960 to NGA.

[1] The artist's descendants believed that the portrait was painted for the Fitches' maternal uncle, Dr. James Lloyd, a prominent Boston surgeon [Martha Babcock Amory, The Domestic and Artistic Life of John Singleton Copley, R.A. (Boston, 1882), 195; Frank W. Bayley, The Life and Works of John Singleton Copley (Boston, 1915), 104; and Jules David Prown, John Singleton Copley 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1966), 2:419]. The donors also believed this (letter from Katharine Abbott Batchelder, 27 February 1974, in NGA curatorial files). Earlier owners, however, believed it was painted for Lloyd's son, who later served as United States Senator from Massachusetts. When M. Woolsey Borland placed the painting on loan at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in 1898, for example, he wrote that it was sent to my grand-uncle Senator James Lloyd in Boston." (Letter of 19 December 1898, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, archives) Dr. Lloyd is listed in the Dictionary of American Biography 6, 333; for his descendants see Papers of the Lloyd Family of the Manor of Queen's Village, Lloyd's Neck, Lond Island, New York, 1654-1826, edited by Dorothy C. Barck, 2 vols. (New York, 1927), 2:889, 895, 899.

[2] Katharine Abbott Batchelder, letter, 27 February 1974, in NGA curatorial files.

[3] Batchelder 1974, letter; M. Woolsey Borland's death date is found in the Social Register, Boston (New York, 1910), 165.

[4] The birth-dates of Mrs. Abbott and her daughters are found in Nelson Otis Tiffany, The Tiffanies of America; History and Genealogy (Buffalo, 1901?), 37; Mrs. Lothrop's death is listed in "Deaths 1993," an appendix to Social Register Association, Social Register 1993, New York, 1992, 21. Other dates were obtained in conversations with Gordon Abbott III in 1988.

Associated Names

Abbott, Gordon, Mr.
Abbott, Katharine McLane Tiffany
Batchelder, George, Mrs.
Borland, John
Borland, John Nelson
Borland, M. Woolsey
Lloyd, James
Lloyd, James, Dr.
Lothrop, Francis B., Mrs.

Exhibition History

1801: Royal Academy, London, 1801, no. 21, as Portraits of the late Col. Fitch and the Misses Fitches.

1829: Boston Atheneum, 1829, no. 47.

1898: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1898-1907.

1944: Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, 1944-1960.

Bibliography

1801: "Exhibition of Paintings, &c. At the Royal Academy, Somerset-Place." St. James Chronicle, or British Evening Post (7-9 May 1801): 4.

1801: "Royal Academy". The Morning Herald (27 April 1801): 3.

1801: "Royal Acadmy, III". The Morning Herald (1 May 1801): 2.

1801: "Royal Exhibition. Number VI." Oracle, and The Daily Advertiser (7 May 1801): 3.

1829: Boston Atheneum, Exh. cat. 1829: no. 47. [See Perkins and Gavin 1980, 39, as Col. W. Fitch, Taking Leave of His Sisters, Before Embarking With His Regiment for Actual Service, lent by J. Lloyd.

1867: Tuckerman, Henry T. Book of the Artists. New York and London, 1867: 72.

1873: Perkins, Augustus Thorndike. A Sketch of the Life and a List of Some of the Works of John Singleton Copley. Boston, 1873: 54.

1882: Amory, Martha Babcock. The Domestic and Artistic Life of John Singleton Copley, R.A.. Boston, 1882: 193, 195-196, 202-203.

1905: Graves, Algernon. The Royal Academy of Arts: A Complete Dictionary of Contributors and their Work from its Foundation in 1769 to 1904. 8 vols. London, 1905-1906, 2:159.

1915: Bayley, Frank W. The Life and Works of John Singleton Copley. Boston, 1915: 104.

1966: Prown, Jules David. John Singleton Copley, vol. 2. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966, pp. 362, 388, 419-420, no. 20.

1970: American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 44, repro., as Colonel Fitch and His Sisters.

1975: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1975: 394, color repro. 395.

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, repro. 34.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 390, no. 556, color repro., as Colonel Fitch and His Sisters.

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: 81-87, color repro. 83.