Mrs. Sylvanus Bourne
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
50 1/4 x 40 in. (127.6 x 101.6 cm)
Classification
Painting
Culture
American
Department
The American Wing
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Morris K. Jesup Fund, 1924
Accession Number
24.79
Tags
Art Historical Context
John Singleton Copley's *Mrs. Sylvanus Bourne* (1766) is a striking oil-on-canvas portrait exemplifying the artist's mastery of colonial American realism. Measuring 50¼ × 40 inches, this work captures the poised likeness of its sitter, a woman from Boston's mercantile elite, seated with books that symbolize her intellect and refinement. Copley, born in Boston in 1738, was the preeminent portraitist of his era, renowned for his unflinching realism and ability to convey social status through meticulous details in clothing, pose, and props. Painted just a decade before the American Revolution, t...
About the Artist
John Singleton Copley · 1738–1815
John Singleton Copley (1738–1815) was the greatest American painter of the colonial era and one of the finest portraitists in the English-speaking world. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, he was largely self-taught, learning from mezzotint reproductions of European paintings and from his stepfather Peter Pelham, an engraver. By his early twenties, Copley had established himself as Boston's leading po...