The portraits of the American painter John Singleton Copley (1738-1815), outstanding for their realism and psychological penetration, are the finest of the colonial period. In England from 1775, he executed historical paintings as well as portraits.

John Singleton Copley was born on July 3, 1738, in Boston. His father died shortly afterward. When Copley was 10, his mother married the engraver, painter, and schoolmaster Peter Pelham. Copley's earliest art instruction came from Pelham and from the leading Boston painter, John Smibert, both of whom died in 1751. Copley then studied with Joseph Blackburn, an English painter working in Boston.

Boston Period

From about 1760 until 1774 Copley painted the finest portraits the Colonies had ever known. In these works Copley's sitters are invariably shown as no more and no less than what they are. His approach is quite different from the flattering, contemporary English society portrait. Yet, for all his directness of observation, Copley never...