IX

JOHN SINGLETON COPLEY


_English School_
1737-1815

A little boy with a squirrel was the first picture that pointed this
artist toward fame and that was painted in England and exhibited at
the Society of Arts.

This American-born Irishman had no family or ancestry of account, but
he himself was to become the father of Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst, and
he did some truly fine things in art.

About the same time America had another painter, Benjamin West, marked
out for fame, but he got his start in Europe while Copley had already
become a successful artist before he left Boston, his native place.

He liked best to paint "interiors"--rooms with fine furniture and
curtains, women in fine clothing and men in embroidered waistcoats and
bejewelled buckles.

In 1777 he got into the Royal Academy, and on the whole had
considerable influence on European art. If we study the portraits that
he painted while in Boston, we can get a very complete idea of the
surroundings of the "Royalists" at the time of our colonial history.