Background
Copley was born in Boston on July 3, 1738, and learned the rudiments of his craft from his stepfather, the engraver Peter Pelham. His style later developed under the influence of imported engravings and of the portraits painted in Boston by his contemporaries John Greenwood, Robert Feke, and Joseph Blackburn. Between 1758 and 1774 Copley produced over 275 portraits in oil or pastel, sending a picture to London for exhibition almost yearly after his first success there in 1766 with his Boy with a Squirrel. Throughout most of this period he was painting in Boston, with the exception of a year and a half spent in New York, Long Island, and Philadelphia. Upon the recommendation of Benjamin West, Copley left America in 1774 for a European tour, and late in 1775 settled with his family in London, where he remained until his death on Sept. 9, 1815.
Copley was one of America's first great painters. The prevailing conventions in portraiture were enlivened in his work by a vigorous realism, a magnificent sense for cool color, and the ability to obtain an effect of structural solidity infrequently found in the work of his contemporaries. Among his finest American paintings are the double portrait of Governor and Mrs. Thomas Mifflin, portraits of Mrs. Thomas Boylston, Thomas Boylston, and Paul Revere, and a large dramatic painting Watson and the Shark. After his move to London, he painted a number of historical scenes, among them The Death of the Earl of Chatham, The Arrest of Five Members of Commons by Charles the First,large dramatic painting Watson and the Shark. After his move to London, he painted a number of historical scenes, among them The Death of the Earl of Chatham, The Arrest of Five Members of Commons by Charles the First, and The Siege and Relief of Gibraltar. Similarly elaborate composition, accompanied by a greater facility of handling and a tendency toward the idealization of his subjects, characterizes his portraits of this period, such as The Copley Family and The Three Princesses.