The following description for PORTRAITS OF CAPTAIN BENJAMIN BEALE OF QUINCY MASSACHUSETTS AND HIS WIFE, ANNE COPELAND BEALE AND A PORTRAIT OF THEIR 8TH CHILD: THREE WORKS,has been prepared entirely by the current owner, Roberts S. Fastov, Esq., and, at the collector’s request, has not been edited by Sloans & Kenyon

Comment: Even though the catalogue raisonné was correct in describing the portrait of Captain Beale as his being "represented in a full dress suit of light cloth," it erred in stating that the portraits measurements were "twenty-nine by twenty four inches." The “twenty-nine by twenty-four inches” measurement that appears in the catalogue raisonné description of the Captain Beale portrait is the same size of the portrait, as viewed and measured from the front of the frame and not allowing for the one inch increase in measuring on the verso of the frame, the outside dimensions of the painting stretcher, which is covered up by the frame. The portrait, when viewed and measured from the back, and allowing for the approximate one inch of the portrait stretcher that is covered by the frame, is thirty inches by twenty-five inches. Thus, the measurements reported in the catalogue raisonné could have been erroneously made and recorded in the catalogue raisonné, e.g., by reporting the sight size of the portrait in the frame, not allowing for its full size by measuring the portrait's dimensions in the back of the frame.

As to the possibility of the portrait of the Beale's son, being, in fact, the portrait of young Anne Beale, the dimensions provided in the catalogue raisonné for the Beale son's portrait were thirteen by fifteen inches, which is fairly close to its full measurements of sixteen and one half inches by thirteen inches, when measured from its back, and there is a strong family history that the family's collection of Copley portraits included the portrait of the Beale's daughter, Anne, and there is no family report of a portrait of a young Beale son portrait. See below in the discussion of provenance, Julia Emmons, and the statements of Ann Wales Emmons Petri, b. 1930. Moreover, the son (not named in the catalogue raisonné) was the Beale's first son, Benjamin, as he was described in the catalogue raisonné as having been "born in Liverpool, June 6, 1768." He would have been much too old for the portrait of the Beale child depicted in this portrait. In addition, Copley did not come to England until 1774. This is not a portrait of a young boy, six years old or even older. This portrait is obviously of a very young girl, approximately 2 years old. It is apparent that Captain Beale decided to have a portrait of his very young, but very fetching s only surviving daughter, Anne, painted in the 1780's.

.

Provenance, Captain Beale and his descendants, as follows:

These portraits were almost certainly painted by Copley in England. Although Captain Beale was born in Braintree, Mass. on May 20, 1741, it is clear that he while he was a sea captain, he maintained his residence in England from at least September 2, 1767, when he married Ann Copeland, in London, up to the late 1780's, when he apparently relocated to his farm in Squantum, Mass Given his roots in the Boston, Mass. area, it is not surprising that Captain Beale would seek out Copley to paint these portraits, because, before Copley left Boston in June 1774 to sail to England, Copley had become the most celebrated portrait artist in the Massachusetts colony by the 1760's, when Captain Beale was still living in Massachusetts, and Copley's fame was established in England by the exhibition, in 1766 of A Boy with a Squirrel, which depicted Copley's half-brother, Henry Pelham, seated at a table and playing with a pet squirrel. This picture, which made Copley a Fellow of the Society of Artists of Great Britain, by vote of September 3, 1766. Thus, Captain Beale was most certainly aware of Copley's reputation as a portrait painter BY THE 1780's, and may have viewed Copley portraits in Massachusetts before he moved to England in the 1760's and in England post 1774, at the homes of friends and business acquaintances and on public exhibition.

Captain Beale who was from age 18, a ship’s captain, farmer and entrepreneur, is known to have taken the Copley portraits of himself and his wife Ann Copeland AND the portrait of their child back to Massachusetts, some years after the American Revolution ended in 1783. In this regard, note that "Benjamin Beale had been warned out of Dorchester (1767-1789)(Register Vol. 60)." He returned to live initially on his farm in Squantum, Massachusetts, which he had acquired in 1772. In 1792, Captain Beale built and lived in a very handsome house, now known as the "Beale-Rice House" at 181 Adams Street, Quincy, Massachusetts, immediately adjacent to the home of John Adams, whose actions in connection with the American Revolution and reputation as an excellent attorney were the predicates for his election as the second President of the United States. John Adams, stated in a letter to his daughter: "Capt. Beale of Squantum has set up between me and my brother (Peter Boylston Adams) a new house, the largest and handsomest built in this neighborhood" which remains today at 181 Adams Street and is a very impressive home. The Beale-Rice House, as it is currently named, is part of the Adams National Historical Park. See a photograph of this house at http://www.flickr.photos.com/dana_smith/6701898485/.

Captain Beale was a successful merchant and very active and prominent in Quincy, Massachusetts public affairs. As immediately adjacent neighbors, Adams and Beale maintained a relatively close relationship, especially with regard to the issues relating to the politics and affairs of Quincy and Massachusetts, until Captain Beale died in 1825. Beale's early active interests in the affairs of Quincy were manifested by his being a petitioner and leader of the movement for the incorporation of the Town of Quincy in 1791 and as a member of the committee to build the first schoolhouse in Quincy in 1795.

When Captain Benjamin Beale died in 1825, his will, probated in 1826, passed on title to the Squantum Farm and 181 Adams Street residence and the “residue” of his estate, which included the portraits of himself, and Ann Copeland Beale and the portrait of Anne Beale, to his male son and heir, George Washington Beale (February 24, 1782-November 19, 1851) and made generous cash bequests to his other children and grandchildren.

When George Washington Beale died in 1851, having resided at the 181 Adams Street house, he bequeathed this residence at 181 Adams Street and the Copley portraits to Captain Beale’s granddaughters, Ann and Caroline Beale, the last surviving of which, died in 1906. The ownership of the Copley paintings by Ann and Caroline Beale is confirmed by the above catalogue raisonné text.

From Beale family records, the Copley portraits passed from Captain Beale's two granddaughters, Ann and Caroline Beale, both unmarried spinsters, to Captain Beale's great grandson, Arthur B. Emmons of Newport, R.I. There had been significant intermarriage between the Emmons and Beale families in the 19^th Century, which provides a basis for Arthur Brewster Emmons to have been given these Beale family portraits by Copley. At Harvard University, he obtained both an AB and LLB; obtained a PhD in engineering in Leipzig, Germany; and was apparently a very successful mining engineer, who also published scholarly mining/engineering papers. Mr. Emmons was also, and perhaps, the most significant factor in his being bequeathed the Copley portraits, an avid art collector, especially of Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. In 1920, the American Art Association sold at auction a collection of approximately 27 of his works by these artists. He also had two other sales of his personal property conducted by such auction Association. Mr. Emmons made gifts of 4 works of art, including a Renoir landscape to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (“BMFA”) in 1917 and 1919 and left a $50,000.00 legacy after his death on July 12, 1922, to the BMFA, which was a great deal of money in those days.

When Arthur B. Emmons died, his wife, Julia Emmons inherited the Beale family Copley portraits and she made bequests of art to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, including 2 Renoir portraits in 1956. One of the living Beale descendants, Ann Wales Emmons Petri, b. 1930, advised Mr. Fastov, in 2012, that she well recalls seeing the Copley Beale family portraits at "Aunt Julia's house" as a child and especially recalled the portrait of Captain Beale's daughter, Anne Beale, as her name is Ann, and she was particularly attracted to it for this reason and its beauty. She has also stated Aunt Julia always referred to the child's portrait, being that of Anne, Captain Beale's daughter, and there was never any suggestion made by her Aunt Julia that the portrait of the child was a boy or Captain Beale's first son, Benjamin.

In her will in 1956, Julia Emmons bequeathed these Beale family Copley portraits to Robert W. Emmons III, who, in turn, bequeathed the portraits to Brooks Emmons Levy, who was curator of rare books and special collections at the Firestone Library, Princeton University.in New Jersey and, was a Life Fellow of the American Numismatic Society and became a Fellow of the American Academy of Rome in 1956. In 1985, Princeton University published a book, Roman Coins in the Princeton University Library: Volume 1, by Brooks Emmons Levy and Pierre Bastian. She also authored many scholarly articles, including articles entitled The Oldest Inventory Of St. Nicolas Of Bari in Traditio, Vol. 21 (1965), pp. 363-381, published by Fordham University; The Autonomous Silver of Sidon (106/107 BC-AD 43/44) in XII. Internationaler Numismatischer Kongress Berlin 1997; and Caligula trouves a Bordeaux (Gironde). (1981) and The Date Of Asinius Pollio's Asian Proconsulship.

Mr. Fastov acquired these Beale family Copley paintings by purchase.

Note 1) Some comments on the Beale family portraits:

The Copley portrait of Captain Beale suggests the New England severity, flintiness, determination, integrity, and competence of the sitters, manifested in such Copley portraits of male sitters, such as John Hancock (1765), Thomas Amory III (1770—1772), Paul Revere (1768-1770) and John Adams (1783) and the firm and crisp handling of men's skin, hair and the coats in such English portraits as that of Winslow Warren Jr. (1785), Jonathan Jackson (1785) John Burgwyn (1788)

As to the portrait of Ann Copeland Beale, see Copley's portrait of Jerathmael Bowers (1763), Susanna Farnham Clarke (Mrs. John Singleton Copley) (1770), Mrs. Thomas Gage (1770), Elizabeth Green (Mrs. Ebenezer Storer II).(1767-1769), Mrs. Joseph Barrell (1771), Mrs. Clark Gayton (1779) for a similar softness of women's skin and skin tone and hair. Copley was obviously influenced by his pastel portraits of women. See. e.g., Copley's pastel portrait of Lady Temple. Regarding Mrs. Beale's drapery, see, e.g., his pastel portrait of Joseph Barrell, (c. 1767). Copley painted at least one other portrait of a women in a white dress and a blue wrap, with which he painted Ann Copeland Beale. See, e.g., Copley’s portrait of Mrs. John Greene.

With respect to the portrait of the daughter, Anne Beale, it appears that Copley executed relatively few portraits of small, young children available for meaningful comparison with this Beale portrait. However, see A Boy with a Squirrel (1765), Young Lady with a Bird and Dog' (1767), the young Copley child standing in the center of The Copley Family by John Singleton Copley (1777),The Three Youngest Daughters of King George III. (1785), Susannah Copley, Copley's daughter (1785), and the children depicted in The Stillwell Family portrait (1786). The dress worn by Captain Beale's daughter, Anne, in her portrait is more consistent with her being the daughter of Massachusetts sea captain and merchant, and thus, is much simpler and less lush, than the attire worn in the above Copley English portraits of children in the 1780's.

Note 2) The following biographical materials on John Singleton Copley are taken from the Wikipedia website:

“John Singleton Copley (1738^[1] – 1815) was an American painter, born presumably in Boston, Massachusetts, and a son of Richard and Mary Singleton Copley, both Irish. He is famous for his portrait paintings of important figures in colonial New England, depicting in particular middle-class subjects. His paintings were innovative in their tendency to depict artifacts relating to these individuals' lives….

Except for a family tradition that speaks of his precocity in drawing, nothing is known of Copley's schooling or of the other activities of his boyhood. His letters, the earliest of which is dated September 30, 1762, reveal a fairly well-educated man. He may have been taught various subjects, it is reasonably conjectured, by his future stepfather, who besides painting portraits and cutting engravings eked out a living in Boston by teaching dancing and, beginning September 12, 1743, by conducting an "Evening Writing and Arithmetic School", duly advertised. It is certain that the widow Copley was married to Peter Pelham on May 22, 1748, and that at about that time she transferred her tobacco business to his house in Lindall Street (a quieter, more respectable part of town), at which the evening school also continued its sessions. In such a household young Copley may have learned to use the paintbrush and the engraver's tools. Whitmore says plausibly: "Copley at the age of fifteen was able to engrave in mezzotint; his stepfather Pelham, with whom he lived three years, was an excellent engraver and skillful also with the brush."^[6]

The artistic opportunities of the home and town in which Copley grew to manhood should be emphasized because he himself, as well as some of his biographers taking him too literally, have made much of the bleakness of his early surroundings. His son, Lord Lyndhurst, wrote that "he (Copley) was entirely self taught, and never saw a decent picture, with the exception of his own, until he was nearly thirty years of age."^[7] Copley himself complained, in a letter to Benjamin West, written November 12, 1766: "In this Country as You rightly observe there is no examples of Art, except what is to [be] met with in a few prints indifferently executed, from which it is not possible to learn much".^[8] Variants of this thesis are found almost everywhere in his earlier letters. They suggest that while Copley was industrious and an able executant he was physically unadventurous and temperamentally inclined toward brooding and self-pity. He could have seen at least a few good paintings and many good prints in the Boston of his youth. The excellence of his own portraits was not accidental or miraculous; it had an academic foundation. A book of Copley's studies of the figure, now at the British Museum, proves that before he was twenty, whether with or without help from a teacher, he was making anatomical drawings with much care and precision. It is likely that through the fortunate associations of a home and workshop in a town which had many craftsmen he had already learned his trade at an age when the average art student of a later era was only beginning to draw.^[9]

[edit]Rising reputation

Self-portrait, 1780-1784, Oil on canvas

Copley was about fourteen and his stepfather had recently died, when he made the earliest of his portraits now preserved, a likeness of his half-brother Charles Pelham, good in color and characterization though it has in its background accessories which are somewhat out of drawing. It is a remarkable work to have come from so young a hand. The artist was only fifteen when (it is believed) he painted the portrait of the Rev. William Welsteed, minister of the Brick Church in Long Lane, a work which, following Peter Pelham's practise, Copley personally engraved to get the benefit from the sale of prints. No other engraving has been attributed to Copley. A self-portrait, undated, depicting a boy of about seventeen in broken straw hat, and a painting of Mars, Venus and Vulcan, signed and dated 1754, disclose crudities of execution which do not obscure the decorative intent and documentary value of the works. Such painting would obviously advertise itself anywhere. Without going after business, for his letters do not indicate that he was ever aggressive or pushy, Copley was started as a professional portrait-painter long before he was of age. In October 1757, Capt. Thomas Ainslie, collector of the Port of Quebec, acknowledged from Halifax the receipt of his portrait, which "gives me great Satisfaction",^[10] and advised the artist to visit Nova Scotia "where there are several people who would be glad to employ You." This request to paint in Canada was later repeated from Quebec, Copley replying: "I should receive a singular pleasure in excepting, if my Business was anyways slack, but it is so far otherwise that I have a large Room full of Pictures unfinished, which would ingage me these twelve months if I did not begin any others."^[11]

Besides painting portraits in oil, doubtless after a formula learned from Peter Pelham, Copley was a pioneer American pastellist. He wrote, on September 30, 1762, to the Swiss painter Jean-Étienne Liotard, asking him for "a sett of the best Swiss Crayons for drawing of Portraits." The young American anticipated Liotard's surprise "that so remote a corner of the Globe as New England should have any demand for the necessary eutensils for practiceing the fine Arts" by assuring him that "America which has been the seat of war and desolation, I would fain hope will one Day become the School of fine Arts."^[12] The requested pastels were duly received and used by Copley in making many portraits in a medium suited to his talent. By this time he had begun to demonstrate his genius for rendering surface textures and capturing emotional immediacy.^[9]

Copley's fame was established in England by the exhibition, in 1766,^[13] of A Boy with a Squirrel, which depicted his half-brother, Henry Pelham, seated at a table and playing with a pet squirrel. This picture, which made the young Boston painter a Fellow of the Society of Artists of Great Britain, by vote of September 3, 1766, had been painted the preceding year. Copley's letter of September 3, 1765, to Capt. R. G. Bruce, of the John and Sukey, reveals that it was taken to England as a personal favor in the luggage of Roger Hale, surveyor of the port of London. An anecdote relates that the painting, unaccompanied by name or letter of instructions, was delivered to Benjamin West (whom Mrs. Amory describes as then "a member of the Royal Academy," though the Academy was not yet in existence). West is said to have "exclaimed with a warmth and enthusiasm of which those who knew him best could scarcely believe him capable, 'What delicious coloring worthy of Titian himself!'" The American squirrel, it is said, disclosed the colonial origin of the picture to the Pennsylvania-born Quaker artist. A letter from Copley was subsequently delivered to him. West got the canvas into the Exhibition of the year and wrote, on August 4, 1766, a letter to Copley in which he referred to Sir Joshua Reynolds's interest in the work and advised the artist to follow his example by making "a viset to Europe for this porpase (of self-improvement) for three or four years."^[9]

West's subsequent letters were considerably responsible for making Copley discontented with his situation and prospects in a colonial town. Copley in his letters to West of October 13 and November 12, 1766 gleefully accepted the invitation to send other pictures to the Exhibition and mournfully referred to himself as "peculiarly unlucky in Liveing in a place into which there has not been one portrait brought that is worthy to be call'd a Picture within my memory." In a later letter to West, of June 17, 1768, he displayed a cautious person's reasons for not rashly giving up the good living which his art gave him. He wrote: "I should be glad to go to Europe, but cannot think of it without a very good prospect of doing as well there as I can here. You are sensable that 300 Guineas a Year, which is my present income, is a pretty living in America. . . . And what ever my ambition may be to excel in our noble Art, I cannot think of doing it at the expence of not only my own happyness, but that of a tender Mother and a Young Brother whose dependance is intirely upon me".^[14] West replied on September 20, 1768, saying that he had talked over Copley's prospects with other artists of London "and find that by their Candid approbation you have nothing to Hazard in Comeing to this Place."^[9]

The income which Copley earned by painting in the 1760s was extraordinary for his town and time. It had promoted the son of a needy tobacconist into the local aristocracy. The foremost personages of New England came to his painting-room as sitters. He married, on November 16, 1769,^[15] Susanna Farnham Clarke, daughter of Richard and Elizabeth (Winslow) Clarke, the former being the very wealthy agent of the Honourable East India Company in Boston; the latter, a New England woman of Mayflower ancestry. The union was a happy one, and socially notable. Mrs. Copley was a beautiful woman of poise and serenity whose features are familiar through several of her husband's paintings. Copley had already bought land on the west side of Beacon Hill extending down to the Charles River.^[16] The newly-married Copleys, who would have six children, moved into "a solitary house in Boston, on Beacon Hill, chosen with his keen perception of picturesque beauty".^[17] It was approximately on the site of the present Boston Women's City Club. Here were painted the portraits of dignitaries of state and church, graceful women and charming children, in the mode of faithful and painstaking verisimilitude which Copley had made his own. The family's style of living at this period was that of people of wealth. John Trumbull told Dunlap that in 1771, being then a student at Harvard College, he called on Copley, who "was dressed on the occasion in a suit of crimson velvet with gold buttons, and the elegance displayed by Copley in his style of living, added to his high repute as an artist, made a permanent impression on Trumbull in favor of the life of a painter."^[18]

In town and church affairs Copley took almost no part. He referred to himself as "desireous of avoideing every imputation of party spirit. Political contests being neighther pleasing to an artist or advantageous to the Art itself."^[19] His name appeared on January 29, 1771, on a petition of freeholders and inhabitants to have the powder house removed from the town whose existence it imperiled. Records of the Church in Brattle Square disclose that in 1772 Copley was asked to submit plans for a rebuilt meeting-house, and that he proposed an ambitious plan and elevation "which was much admired for its Elegance and Grandure," but which on account of probable expensiveness was not accepted by the society. Copley's sympathy with the politicians who were working toward American independence appears to have been genuine but not so vigorous as to lead him to participate in any of their plans.^[9]

It was known to earlier biographers^[20] that Copley at one time painted portraits in New York City. The circumstances of this visit, which was supplemented by a few days inPhiladelphia, were first disclosed through Prof. Guernsey Jones's discovery of many previously unpublished Copley and Pelham documents in the Public Record Office, London. From these letters and papers, published by the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1914, it appears that in 1768 Copley painted in Boston a portrait of Myles Cooper, president ofKing's College, who then urged his visiting New York. Accepting the invitation later, Copley, between June 1771 and January 1772, painted thirty-seven portraits in New York, setting up his easel "in Broadway, on the west side, in a house which was burned in the great conflagration on the night the British army entered the city as enemies."^[21] Copley's letters to Henry Pelham, whom he left in charge of his affairs in Boston, describe minutely the journey across New England, his first impressions of New York, which "has more Grand Buildings than Boston, the streets much cleaner and some much broader," and the successful search for suitable lodgings and a painting-room; thereafter they give detailed accounts of sitters and social happenings. The correspondence also contains Copley's careful instructions to Pelham concerning the features of a new house then being built on his Beacon Hill "farm," giving elevations and specifications of the addition of "peazas" which the artist saw for the first time in New York. Copley at the time had a lawsuit respecting title to some of his lands. His letters reveal a man who allowed such disputes to worry him considerably.^[9]

The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar, September 1782 is one of Britain's largest oil paintings; it depicts the defeat of the floating batteries at Gibraltar during the Great Siege of Gibraltar. The Governor of Gibraltar,General George Augustus Eliott, is on horseback pointing to the rescue of the defeated Spanish sailors by the British.

In September 1771, Mr. and Mrs. Copley visited Philadelphia, where, at the home of Chief Justice William Allen, they "saw a fine Coppy of the Titian Venus and Holy Family at whole length as large as life from Coregio".^[22] On their return journey they viewed at New Brunswick, New Jersey several pictures attributed to van Dyck. "The date is 1628 on one of them," wrote Copley; "it is without dout I think Vandyck did them before he came to England." Back in New York Copley wrote, on October 17, requesting that a certain black dress of Mrs. Copley's be sent over at once. "As we are much in company," he said, "we think it necessary Sukey [his wife] should have it, as her other Cloaths are mostly improper for her to wear".^[23]On December 15 Copley informed Pelham that "this Week finishes all my Business, no less than 37 Busts; so the weather permitting by Christmas we hope to be on the road." Thus ended Copley's only American tour away from Boston. Accounts of his having painted in the South are without foundation. Most of the Southern portraits that have been popularly attributed to him were made by Henry Benbridge.^[9]

His correspondents in England continued to urge Copley to undertake European studies. He saved an undated and unsigned letter from some one who wrote: "Our people here are enrapture'd with him, he is compared to Vandyck, Reubens and all the great painters of Old." His brother-in-law Jonathan Clarke, already in London, advised his "comeing this way." West wrote, on January 6, 1773: "My Advice is, Mrs. Copley to remain in Boston till you have made this Tour [to Italy], After which, if you fix your place of reasidanc in London, Mrs. Copley to come over."^[9]

Political and economic conditions in Boston were increasingly turbulent. Copley's father-in-law, Mr. Clarke, was the merchant to whom was consigned the tea that provoked the Boston Tea Party. Copley's family connections were all Loyalists. He defended his wife's relatives at a meeting described in his letter of December 1, 1773. He wrote on April 26, 1774, of an unpleasant experience when a mob visited his house demanding the person of Col. George Watson, a Loyalist mandamus counselor who had gone elsewhere. Thepatriots having threatened to have his blood if he "entertained any such Villain for the future," Copley exclaimed: "What a spirit! What if Mr. Watson had stayed (as I pressed him to) to spend the night. I must either have given up a friend to the insult of a Mob or had my house pulled down and perhaps my family murthered."^[24]

[edit]Move to London and the European tour

With many letters of introduction, all of which are published in the Copley-Pelham correspondence, Copley sailed from Boston in June 1774, leaving his mother, wife, and children in Henry Pelham's charge. He wrote on July 11 from London "after a most easy and safe passage." An early call was upon West, to "find in him those amiable qualitys that makes his friendship boath desireable as an artist and as a Gentleman." “In England, what [Benjamin] West and Copley did together was to create a new kind of history painting, one with modern, topical subjects, chiefly death scenes of heroes, in a historic manner, but with scrupulous attention to contemporary detail” (Johnson 441)^[25] The American was duly introduced to Sir Joshua Reynolds and was taken to "the Royal Accademy where the Students had a naked model from which they were Drawing." In London Copley took no sitters at this time though urged to do so. Shortly before leaving for Italy he "dined with Gov'r Hutchinson, and I think there was 12 of us altogether, and all Bostonians, and we had Choice Salt Fish for Dinner."^[9]

On September 2, 1774, Copley chronicled his arrival at Paris (the beginning of a nine-month European tour), where he saw and painstakingly described many paintings and sculptures…. Copley's plan of study and mode of living at Rome are described in several letters. He found time for excursions. He visited Naples in January 1775, writing to his wife: "The city is very large and delightfully situated but you have no idea of the dirt, . . . and the people are as dirty as the streets,—indeed, they are offensive to such a degree as to make me ill".^[28] The excavations at Pompeii greatly interested him and in company with Ralph Izard of South Carolina (whose family portrait he later painted) he extended his journey toPaestum. At Rome early in 1775 he copied Correggio's St. Jerome on commission from Lord Grosvenor, and other works for Mr. and Mrs. Izard. About May 20 he started on a tour northward through Florence, Parma, Mantua, Venice, Trieste, Stuttgart, Mainz, Cologne, and the Low Countries. From Parma he wrote to Henry Pelham urging that the whole family leave America at once since, "if the Frost should be severe and the Harbour frozen, the Town of Boston will be exposed to an attack; and if it should be taken all that have remained in the town will be considered as enimys to the Country and ill treated or exposed to great distress." This anxiety was groundless, for Mrs. Copley and the children had already sailed on May 27, 1775 from Marblehead in a ship crowded with refugees. She arrived in London some weeks before Copley returned from the Continent, making her home with her brother-in-law, Henry Bromfield. Her father, Richard Clarke, and her brothers came soon after. Copley happily rejoined his family and set up his easel, at first in Leicester Fields^[29]and later^[30] at 25 George St., Hanover Square, in a house built by a wealthy Italian and admirably adapted to an artist's requirements. Here Mr. and Mrs. Copley and their son Lord Lyndhurst lived and died.^[9]

As an English painter Copley began in 1775 a career promising at the outset and destined from personal and political causes to end in gloom and adversity. His technique was so well established, his habits of industry so well confirmed, and the reputation that had preceded him from America was so extraordinary, that he could hardly fail to make a place for himself among British artists. He himself, however, "often said, after his arrival in England, that he could not surpass some of his early works".^[31] The deterioration of his talent was gradual, however, so some of the "English Copleys" are superb paintings.^[9]

Watson and the Shark (1778) depicts the rescue of Brook Watson from a shark attack in Havana, Cuba.

Following a fashion set by West and others, Copley began to paint historical pieces as well as portraits. His first foray into this genre was Watson and the Shark, its subject based on an incident related to the artist by Brook Watson, who had been attacked by a shark while swimming in Havana harbour as a 14-year-old boy. It is likely that Watson, who went on to a successful career despite the attack and the loss of his leg below the knee, commissioned the painting as a lesson for other unfortunates, including orphans like himself, in the fact that even the severest adversity can be overcome. Engravings from this work achieved an enduring popularity.^[9]

For a place over the fireplace of the George St. dining room was painted the great family picture now at Boston, which, when first publicly shown by Lord Lyndhurst at the Manchester exhibition, 1862, was "pronounced by competent critics to be equal to any, in the same style, by Vandyck".^[32] But the artist's fame as a historical painter was made by The Death of the Earl of Chatham. The painting, however, brought him denunciation from Sir William Chambers, president of the Royal Academy, who objected to its being exhibited privately in advance of the Academy's exhibition. In an open letter Chambers accused Copley of purveying his picture like a "raree-show" and of aiming for "either the sale of prints or the raffle of the picture." To this censure, obviously unfair to one newly-arrived in London and uninformed as to the professional ethics of exhibiting, Copley one morning wrote a caustic reply, and in the evening wisely threw it into the fire. Engravings from the Chatham picture later sold well in England and America.^[9]

Copley's adventures in historical painting were the more successful because of his painstaking efforts to obtain good likenesses of personages and correct accessories of their periods. He traveled much in England to make studies of old portraits and actual localities. At intervals came from his studio such pieces as The Red Cross Knight, Abraham Offering up Isaac, Hagar and Ishmael in the Wilderness, The Death of Major Peirson, The Arrest of Five Members of the Commons by Charles the First, The Siege of Gibraltar, The Surrender of Admiral DeWindt to Lord Camperdown, The Offer of the Crown to Lady Jane Grey by the Dukes of Northumberland and Suffolk, The Resurrection, and others. He continued to paint portraits, among them those of several members of the royal family and numerous British and American celebrities. Between 1776 and 1815 he sent forty-three paintings to exhibitions of the Royal Academy, of which he was elected an associate member in the former year. His election to full membership occurred in 1783.^[33]….

The effort with which Copley labored over his compositions was exemplary, but at times it may have injured his health and disposition. "He has been represented to me by some," wrote Cunningham, "as a peevish and peremptory man while others describe him as mild and unassuming."^[34] Both descriptions probably fitted Copley depending on his mood: he might be nervous from overwork and worry or in a normal condition. His granddaughter, Mrs. Amory, recalls that he usually painted continuously from early morning until twilight. In the evening his wife or a daughter read English literature for his benefit. He took but little exercise–probably not enough for health.^[35]

He would have liked to return to America but his professional routine prevented this. He was politically more liberal than were his relatives. He painted the Stars and Stripes over a ship in the background of Elkanah Watson's portrait on December 5, 1782, after listening to George III's speech formally acknowledging American independence. "He invited me into the studio," wrote Watson in his Journal, "and there, with a bold hand, a master's touch, and I believe an American heart, attached to the ship the Stars and Stripes; this was, I imagine, the first American flag hoisted in Old England."^[36] Copley's contacts with New England people continued to be many. He painted portraits of John Adams, John Quincy Adams, and other Bostonians who visited England. His daughter Elizabeth was married in August 1800 to Gardiner Greene of Boston, a wealthy gentleman whose descendants preserved much of the correspondence of the Copley family.^[9]

Prior to this marriage of his daughter, Copley had sold his Beacon Hill estate to a syndicate of speculators headed by Dr. Benjamin Joy. He felt himself victimized when he learned that the purchasers knew of a project of building the Massachusetts State House at the top of the hill, and he sent his son John Singleton Copley, Jr., then at the beginning of his brilliant legal career, to Boston in 1796 seeking to annul the arrangement. The letters which the future Lord Chancellor wrote during his visit to the United States are interesting reading but his quest was unsuccessful. "I do not believe," he wrote to his father, "that any person could have obtained from them one shilling more." Despite this report the artist made further efforts to recover his "farm." The subject of his grievance frequently recurs in the family correspondence, but it is not certain that Copley had any reason to feel himself defrauded. A memorandum prepared for him by Gardiner Greene stated that long after the land "had passed out of Copley's possession it, or a part of it, was offered at no higher price than was paid to his son."^[37] Allen Chamberlain, whose Beacon Hill gives a detailed summary of the complicated negotiations surrounding this purchase, holds that Copley was fairly compensated at a price three times what he had paid for property from which he had had rents of considerable amount.^[9]

[edit]Decline

In his last fifteen years, though painting persistently, Copley experienced much depression and disappointment. The Napoleonic Wars brought hard times. The household at 25 George St. was expensive to maintain. The education of a talented son was costly. It grieved the father that after the young barrister began to earn his way it became necessary to accept his help in supporting the home. Lord Campbell quotes the jurist as saying that "his father, having lived rather expensively, accumulated little for him."^[38] Mrs. Amory makes out a case for Mrs. Copley's admirable management,^[39] but it appears that a standard of living difficult to maintain in the changed circumstances made much borrowing inevitable. Copley was chagrined by the failure of his Equestrian Portrait of the Prince Regent to "bring a financial return." Cunningham says, "No customer made his appearance for Charles and the impeached members." Other canvases involving years of labor were unsold. Troubles with engravers were many, whether the fault was theirs or the painter's. Copley's letters to his son-in-law in Boston usually concerned loans made to him and frequently extended.^[9]

The aging artist's physical and mental health produced anxiety. In 1810 he had a bad fall which kept him from painting for a month.^[40] He incessantly bewailed the loss of his Boston property. Mrs. Copley wrote on December 11, 1810: "Your father has been led to feel this affair [his unsuccessful litigation to recover the "farm"] more sensibly from the present state of things in this country where every difficulty of living is increasing and the advantages arising from his profession are decreasing".^[41] In October 1811, Copley wrote to Greene in distress, craving an additional loan of £600. And on March 4, 1812 he wrote: "I am still pursuing my profession in the hope that, at a future time, a proper amount will be realized from my works, either to myself or family, but at this moment all pursuits which are not among the essentials of life are at a stand".^[42] In August 1813, Mrs. Copley wrote that, although her husband was still painting, "he cannot apply himself as closely as he used to do." She reported in April 1814: "Your father enjoys his health but grows rather feeble, dislikes more and more to walk; but it is still pleasant for him to go on with his painting." In June 1815, the Copleys entertained as visitor John Quincy Adams, with whom they jubilantly discussed the new terms of peace between the United States and the United Kingdom. In the letter describing this visit the painter's infirmities are said to have been increased by "his cares and disappointments." A note of August 18, 1815, informed the Greenes that Copley while at dinner had had a paralytic stroke. He seemed at first to recover. Late in August his prognosis was favorable to his painting again. A second shock occurred, however, and he died on September 9, 1815. "He was perfectly resigned," wrote his daughter Mary, "and willing to die, and expressed his firm trust in God, through the merits of our Redeemer." He was buried in Croydon, Surrey.^[9]

How deep into debt Copley had fallen in his latest years was hinted at in Mrs. Copley's letter of February 1, 1816, to Gardiner Greene in which she gave details of his assets and borrowings and predicted: "When the whole property is disposed of and applied toward the discharge of the debts a large deficiency must, it is feared, remain." The estate was settled by Copley's son, later Lord Lyndhurst, who maintained the establishment in George St., supported his mother down to her death in 1836, and kept the ownership of many of the artist's unsold pictures until March 5, 1864, when they were sold at auction in London. Several of the works then dispersed are now in American collections.^[9]

[edit]Legacy

Statue in Copley Square

According to art historian Paul Staiti, Copley was the greatest and most influential painter in colonial America, producing about 350 works of art. With his startling likenesses of persons and things, he came to define a realist art tradition in America. His visual legacy extended throughout the nineteenth century in the American taste for the work of artists as diverse as Fitz Henry Lane and William Harnett. In Britain, while he continued to paint portraits for the élite, his great achievement was the development of contemporary history painting, which was a combination of reportage, idealism, and theatre. He was also one of the pioneers of the private exhibition, orchestrating shows and marketing prints of his own work to mass audiences that might otherwise attend exhibitions only at the Royal Academy, or who previously had not gone to exhibitions at all.^[43]

Boston's Copley Square, Copley Square Hotel and Copley Plaza bear his name, as does Copley Township, Summit County, Ohio.

"John Singleton Copley". Dictionary of American Biography. American Council of Learned Societies, 1928–1936. (Footnotes omitted)

References:

· James Thomas Flexner, John Singleton Copley (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1948).

· "Copley, John Singleton" in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

· Jules David Prown, John Singleton Copley in America, 1738–1774, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1966.

Note 3) The above presale estimates of $2,000,000-$4,000,000 are reasonable and justifiable for the foregoing and following reasons:

First, the 3 portraits are generally in very good condition, except for some fine craquelure, which is well set-down, and are still very aesthetically satisfying, as the craquelure is largely visible in the background colors and is not that visible in their faces and bodies, and the paintings have been relined. Captain Beale is a handsome portrait of a dignified middle-aged New England man of substance and importance. His wife is a very beautiful woman, and, her good looks were passed on to their child, Anne, per Copley's rendition of these portraits, and, as a group of 18^th Century portraits of Americans, these 3 portraits are historically and aesthetically very satisfying.

Second, Captain Beale was a man of substance and an important figure in Quincy, Massachusetts and was long-time immediately adjacent neighbor and friend of John Adams, from 1792-1825, with the exception of the time Adams spent in the Washington administration and as President. As Quincy residents and full-time neighbors from c. 1800-1825, they had ample opportunity to become involved in the politics and affairs of Quincy and its environs, of Massachusetts, New England and of the Nation. Because of this and Captain Beale's excellent, beautiful design decisions and building of his 181 Adams Street residence, in and of itself, establishes for him well-earned kudos for his aesthetic taste and judgment. The residence was made part of the Adams National Historical Park. The Quincy, Mass. Historical and Architectural Survey has stated the following about 181 Adams Street residence:

"The Beale-Rice is one of the grandest Federal residences in the city of Quincy. Its historical and architectural integrity merits it to be recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic Places not only for its antiquity and its excellent condition, but also as an fine example of a high style Federal residence of the 1790's which is still sited within its landscaped country setting complete with carriage house. The residence has the archetypal five bay facade topped by a modillioned cornice and a balustrade serving to emphasize to desired horizontality of the period. Atop the low pitched hip roof is a monitor roof with three small windows which helped to light the low attic floor; two tall chimneys pierce the roof at the side. The house's pristine classical facade is framed by two large Doric pilasters on bases which articulate the corners; in the centre is a beautiful Federal door with a four-light transom and side lights which is protected by a beautiful Colonial Revival Ionic portico capped by a modillioned Greek pediment, reiterating the details of the eaves. The house is a significant factor in the Adams Street streetscape and a worthy neighbor to the historic Vassall-Adams House at 135 Adams Street."

Many of the Beale family descendants and the Emmons family, which intermarried, have led very distinguished lives: a number have been graduates of Harvard University and captains of industry, physicians and served on the faculty of Harvard and other distinguished learning institutions and made significant contributions to charitable and philanthropic organizations.

Third, these 3 portraits are all very attractive. Captain Beale, as portrayed by Copley, has a visage of a relatively handsome middle-aged man, with an element of American colonial flintiness, integrity and quiet pride in his independent American colonial status, which one finds in some of Copley's finest American portraits, that he painted before leaving the colonies in 1774 to go to England. Remember that Captain Beale, while living in England, named his 7^th child George Washington Beale, who was born shortly before the end of the American Revolution. In this regard, it is not surprising that Captain Beale, a man who was born in the same colony of Massachusetts as Copley, was almost certainly aware of Copley's reputation as the best Massachusetts portrait artist and his high reputation in England, selected Copley to paint these 3 portraits. Indeed, while Captain Beale was a man of some substance, he was an American colonial, not a man who travelled regularly in the rarified upper class circles or members of the peerage, who would been more inclined to commission English artists, such as Reynolds or Gainsborough, to paint these portraits. Captain Beale's white coat is a sartorial triumph painted with the high degree of accuracy, crispness and skill which is characteristic of Copley's style and artistic abilities in New England and thereafter. Captain Beale is also depicted as wearing a very snazzy white vest with gold trim, brass buttons and some very small and delicate red and bluish green decorations, that appear to be inspired by floral decorations. Finally, he is sitting at a table on which lies a map or, perhaps, a seaman's chart, to which he is pointing. Such map or chart may have been intended to his being a merchant or as a ship's captain

As to the portrait of Ann Copeland Beale, she is a very beautiful woman, painted with soft, regular beautiful facial features and a smooth. relatively narrow and even oval face with high cheekbones highlighted with a light pink glaze, extremely soft, almost non-existent eyebrows and a full, thick, softly painted high pompadour. There is a distinct gentle, subdued sweetness, almost angelic appearance in her visage. All of these characteristics are suggestive of a classic beauty. Her face, chest and arm and hand skin is a very smooth, soft ivory white, and her right hand gently secures the blue wrap around her shoulders with delicately crooked pinky not grasping the wrap. Most of the foregoing suggests Copley's modification of his American colonial style to adapt to and meet the tastes and standards of English high society painting. Her white dress is more consistent with that of an American colonial than dresses worn by the woman of the English peerage or high society. All of Mrs. Beale's clothing is depicted with Copley's characteristic crispness and beauty of Copley's best American female portraits.

As to the portrait of Captain and Mrs. Beale's daughter, Anne, it is a true joy to behold. She is demure, has a faint smile on her face, which has perfectly even and beautiful features---big brown eyes, a regular nose, cherubic lips and pink cheeks and a lovely simple coiffure of her sandy blonde hair with a little ponytail-like appendage. Her off the shoulder simple white dress with a pink sash is accurately, but softly depicted and the rest of the portrait, as well, is suggestive of Copley's attempt to adopt and apply his English style designed to meet the tastes and standards of English high society painting to a cute, little girl and to satisfy the tastes of the New England born Captain Beale, as well of those of his wife. Moreover, relative to Copley's large output of portraits of adult men and women, his portraits of children are very rare. Thus, the portrait of Captain Beale and Mrs. Beale's daughter, Anne, is a rare and beautiful Copley portrait.

Fourth, only 30 Copley oil portraits have been auctioned since 1990, per Artprice.com, and only 33 Copley oil portraits, including miniatures, have been auctioned since 1985, per Askart.com. During this time period, 1985-October 5, 2012, oil portraits of a husband and wife have never been offered at auction, let alone a family grouping, including a child. These portraits present a rare opportunity to purchase not only Copley portraits of a handsome, dignified husband and a strikingly attractive, lovely and handsome wife, but, even more rarely, a portrait of their very cute, beautiful and delightful daughter. The museum holdings of Copley portraits are vast. Askart.com lists 74 museums which own Copley's works. Many museums only hold one portrait of a man or a woman. Some museums have multiple holdings of Copley portraits, e.g., National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. holds 14 Copley oil portraits and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts holds 16 Copley oil portraits. Only 2 of the National Gallery's portraits are husband and wife. None of the Boston Museum's portraits are husband and wife. The implication of these museums holdings is very important. For each portrait of a man or a woman held by a museum, it will be impossible for anyone, including an auction house, to sell to the museum a portrait of the husband or wife, married to the sitter held by the museum. Thus, it is fair to say that the opportunity to bid on and buy a group of Copley portraits involving Copley portraits of a husband and wife, let alone a group that includes a Copley portrait of a very appealing child, is exceedingly slim and, most certainly, almost non-existent. Any serious private or institutional collector of Copley or fine art should very carefully consider taking this, at the least, as only a very rare if not a unique opportunity, to bid within the presale estimates of $2,000,000 to $4,000,000 on these 3 Copley portraits or in excess thereof.

The foregoing is confirmed by the following. From a review of the auction prices obtained for Copley paintings of this nature, from the records of Askart.com and Artprice.com, no pair of husband and wife oil on canvas portraits have been offered or sold at auction for approximately the past twenty seven years, nor has a group of family oil on canvas portraits, including one or more children of the husband and wife, have been offered or sold. The closest to such a sale would be the Pair Of Bust-Length Pastel Portraits (Not Oil On Canvas) Of Mr. And Mrs. Joseph Greene (1767) sold by Northeast Auctions, Portsmouth, NH for $397,000 on 5/22-24, 2008.

Title/Subject: PAIR OF BUST-LENGTH PASTEL PORTRAITS OF MR. AND MRS. JOSEPH GREENE, 1767 Signed. Pastel on paper 23 1/4 in. x 17 in. sold for $326,000 on 2/22/2008-2/24/2008 at Northeast Auctions, Portsmouth, NH

These pastel portraits are much smaller than the oil portraits of Captain and Mrs. Beale and did not include a portrait of a vivacious, cute Greene child, like Anne Beale. Most importantly, 18^th century pastel portraits, almost invariably, bring much, much less than oil paintings for the work of an 18^th century portraitist, working in both mediums. Compare, e.g., the auction prices obtained for the pastels vs. oil paintings of Francis Cotes, who was the best English pastel portraitist, of his age, while also excelling in oil portraiture.

Fifth, and perhaps, most important, the following quotation makes clear that it is possible there are no more Copley oil on canvas portraits like those of Captain and Mrs. Beale, let alone an additional portrait of a child, in private hands available for sale and purchase. The Dallas Museum of Art has a website in which it announced:

"A pair of portraits painted by John Singleton Copley in 1767 have joined the collection of the DMA….The portraits of Woodbury Langdon and Sarah Sherburne Langdon [who were husband and wife, just like Captain Beale and his wife, Ann], were thought to be the last unbroken pair of portraits by Copley still in private hands, were purchased by The Eugene and Margaret McDermott Art Fund, Inc., from the estate of Helen Elizabeth Langdon Foster, a descendant of the sitters (Emphasis and bold face added).”

Thus, this offering of 3 Beale family oil on canvas portraits may be unique, and the last time that a private person or a public institution will be able to purchase such a family group of portraits ever again. Inasmuch as Copley was almost certainly (and also considering Charles Willson Peale, Benjamin West and Gilbert Stuart) the best and most technically competent and sophisticated portrait artist, born in the American colonies, during the 18th Century and arguably the best portrait artist that America has ever produced. No serious collector of American art, who has the requisite financial capability to purchase these 3 Copley Beale family portraits, should pass up what is a once in a life time opportunity and very likely only opportunity ever to buy an intact Copley husband and wife pair of portraits, plus that of their child, and such an opportunity will never arise again, unless the purchaser of these portraits at this sale decides to offer them for sale to the public in the future

Sixth, the auction prices obtained for the following Copley portraits also justify the presale estimate of $2,000,000-$4,000,000 for these 3 Copley portraits, even though there are relatively few Copley auction sales. As to comparable portraits of men, the prices obtained for the following male portraits, Samuel Barrett ($386,500), Samuel Phillips Savage ($570,000), John Hancock ($1,696,000), James Tilley ($374,000) and Benjamin Loring ($425,000), given their sizes relative to the portrait of Captain Beale and Captain Beale’s prominence as a New England merchant and man of public affairs suggest that an appropriate presale estimate for Captain Beale’s portrait should readily have a presale estimate of $700,000-$1,000,000 in and of itself. The ¾ length portrait of Mrs. Theodore Atkinson, Jr., which is larger than the portrait of Anne Copeland Beale cost the purchaser $3,376,000. However, Anne Copeland Beale is a more beautiful woman than Mrs. Atkinson, even though Copley’s rendition of the faces are somewhat similar in technique, but the coloring of the Beale portrait is slightly more sophisticated. Compare and note the gross disparity between the prices obtained for the portrait of Mrs. Theodore Atkinson, Jr., who is reasonably attractive, but not as beautiful as Mrs. Beale, on the one hand, and the portraits of Mrs. Samuel Watts ($397,000), and Mrs. Elizabeth Coffin Amory ($291,750), on the other (below), who, in varying degrees, are not very physically attractive, somewhat severe, almost ugly. This suggests that a presale estimate for Mrs. Beale’s portrait, in and of itself, at a minimum, should be in the range of $2,000,000-$3,000,000 and perhaps higher. There are no sales of any Copley portraits of children available for comparison, but it is hard to conceive that any other child could exceed Anne Beale in attractiveness. Generally, in the hierarchy of the value of portraits, portraits of beautiful young girls are the highest priced auction subjects. In addition, as noted above, while Copley painted many portraits of adult men and women, his portraits of children are very rare. Even though the Anne Beale portrait is a small Copley portrait, so are his portraits of Samuel Barrett ($386, 500), James Tilley ($374,000), which are both smaller than the portrait of Anne Beale. Thus, a conservative presale estimate for the Copley portrait of the Beale daughter, Anne in and of itself, should be $400,000-$600,000. Of his relatively few paintings of children, Boy with a Squirrel (Henry Pelham), 1765, oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, a portrait of the artist’s half-brother that Copley intended to showcase his artistic finesse. It is a far more complex composition and is his masterpiece regarding a rendition of a child, who, of course, is several years older than Anne Beale; and thus, more readily lends itself to a more complex composition than the portrait of a very young Anne Beale, who was being painted for Captain Beale, her Massachusetts parent with almost certainly the more simple tastes of a colonist. Nonetheless, Copley's rendering of Anne Beale's face is comparable to that of Henry Pelham. Captain Beale is as handsome as Hancock, Tilley and Loring and more handsome than Barrett and Savage. See below.

Logic and the foregoing considerations suggest that the $4,000,000 high estimate for the 3 Copley portraits of the Beale family is appropriate, reasonable and justifiable. Bear in mind that the above Atkinson, portrait is only one portrait, not three; she is not as beautiful as Anne Copeland Beale, and it brought $3,376,000. The high estimate of $4,000,000 for the three Beale family portraits is justified by the all of the foregoing considerations set forth above, including, and especially the unique rarity of an offering of 3 Copley portraits of one family and that this auction may be the last opportunity to purchase at auction a Copley family of 3, and that 2 of 3 portraits, that of Ann Copeland Beale and her daughter, Anne, are far more physically beautiful and attractive than many Copley sitters. Thus, as any connoisseur of art and auction values knows, these two portraits are more valuable than most of the Copley paintings set forth below. See the following auction records for the paintings discussed above.

Title/Subject: Samuel Barrett Inscribed Oil on canvas. 5.25 in. x 4.50 in. sold for $386, 500 on 1/21/2011 at Christie’s, NY

Title/Subject: Samuel Phillips Savage, 1764 Signed and dated. Oil on canvas. 49.50 in. x 39 in. sold for $570,000 on 08/01/2008-8//2008 at Northeast Auctions, Portsmouth, NH

Title/Subject: Mrs. Samuel Watts (Sarah Osborne) Signature information not available. Oil on canvas. 29 in. x 24 in. sold for $397,000 on 05/22/2008 at Sotheby’s, NY

Title/Subject: Title/Subject: John Hancock Unsigned. Oil on canvas. 30 in. x 25 in. sold for $1,696,000 on 05/24/2006

at Sotheby’s, NY

James Tilley Signed. Oil on canvas. 13.70 in. x 10.50 in. sold for $374,00 on 1/21/2006 at Christie’s, NY

Title/Subject: Mrs. Theodore Atkinson, Jr. (Francis Deering Wentworth) Signed. Oil on canvas. 50 in. x 40 in. sold for $3,376,000 on 11/30/2005 at Sotheby’s, NY

Title/Subject: Portrait of Benjamin Loring, Physician in the Royal Navy Unsigned. Oil on canvas. 30 in. x 25 in. sold for $425,000 on 8/21/2005 at Northeast Auctions, Portsmouth, NH

Title/Subject: Mrs. Elizabeth Coffin Amory Signature information not available. Oil on canvas. 30.20 in. x 25 in. sold for $291,750 on 11/30/2000 at Sotheby’s, NY