Mrs. Jerathmael Bowersca. 1763
Mrs. Jerathmael Bowers sits in a landscape in a gleaming satin gown, with a small dog in her lap. More about this work
About this work
Mrs. Jerathmael Bowers sits in a landscape in a gleaming satin gown, with a small dog in her lap. Copley, who never saw a major European painting until he left America in 1774, based the composition on a print after a portrait by Joshua Reynolds, adapting fashionable London imagery for his colonial sitters. What is his own is the astonishing realism of the satin, lace and skin, which made him the finest portraitist in the colonies.
Written by Ochre Editions.
How it was made
- Oil paint
- Pigment ground in a drying oil, usually linseed. It dries slowly, so painters could blend on the canvas, build up thin translucent glazes, and rework a picture over weeks. Canvas replaced wooden panels in the 1500s because it is lighter and can be rolled.
John Singleton Copley
American, 1738–1815 · Born in Boston, Massachusetts; died in London.
Copley was largely self-taught and became colonial America’s finest portraitist, painting Boston merchants and their families with sharp, tactile realism, from glinting silver to polished mahogany. In 1774, on the eve of the Revolution, he left for Europe and settled in London, where he turned to large modern history paintings such as Watson and the Shark and The Death of Major Peirson. He never returned to America.
Written by Ochre Editions.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The Met has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- 15.128
- Credit
- Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Type
- Painting
- Department
- The American Wing
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
