Mrs. Henry Hill (Anna Barrett)
John Singleton Copley (American, 1738–1815)
c. 1765–70
- Medium
- Pastel on paper mounted on linen
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- 58.4 × 43.2 cm (23 × 17 in.)
- Culture
- United States
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of the Americas
- Credit line
- Gift of Barrett Wendell Jr.
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
In 2006 the Art Institute of Chicago was lucky enough to acquire John Singleton Copley's pastel Henry Hill (2006.83), the companion to Mrs. Henry Hill (Anna Barrett) which has been in the collection since 1959. Both pastels retain their original Rococo-style frames. They may have been carved by the Boston cratsman John Welch, who created many of Copley's Rococo frames, the type the artist used most frequently for his American portraits. The frame on Mrs. Henry Hill was gilded, as this was generally appropriate for the Rococo style; however, recent scholarship has revealed that a few Copley frames, like that of Henry Hill, were painted black. Thus, these portraits present two different ways that Copley's frames might have been finished.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
