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Double portrait of two men in black hats and red coats

At center right, an elderly man in a black hat with the brim flipped up, faces toward us but turns his head to the right, looking upward. He has a prominent nose, light skin and gaunt features. Gray hair peeking out from his hat is tied in back with a black ribbon, and he wears a red jacket with gold epaulets. Just behind him at center left, another man is identically dressed. He has pale skin, a full round face and gray curls protruding from his hat, as he looks up and to the left. The background is quickly brushed red and brown tones. Details at the edges of the canvas are left blank or rendered only in outline.

Gallery Text

In 1783, the City of London commissioned Copley to create a large public painting commemorating Britain’s victory over the French and Spanish navies at the Siege of Gibraltar in 1782. These portraits were preparatory studies for that painting. Committed to a new kind of history painting that would be grounded in factual and visual accuracy, Copley hoped to incorporate life portraits of soldiers who had participated in the battle. In the summer of 1787, he traveled to Germany to paint De La Motte (1942.179), von Hugo, and von Schlepegrell (1942.180), German officers who had helped the British to defend Gibraltar. Among the liveliest and most engaging works in Copley’s oeuvre, these portraits are both character studies and experiments in composition, as the extensive underdrawing around each figure suggests.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1942.180
People
John Singleton Copley, American (Boston, MA 1738 - 1815 London, England)
Title
Colonel Ernst August von Hugo and Lt. Colonel von Schlepegrell
Classification
Paintings
Work Type
painting
Date
1787
Culture
American
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/230318

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
64.8 x 54.6 cm (25 1/2 x 21 1/2 in.)
framed: 86.7 x 76.8 x 7.9 cm (34 1/8 x 30 1/4 x 3 1/8 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
To artist’s son Lord Lyndhurst; sold [through his estate sale, March 5, 1864]; to Clarke. Mrs. Charles (Martha Babcock) Amory; to her daughter Mrs. F. Gordon Dexter (Susan Greene Amory), by 1915; to her son Gordon Dexter; to his wife Mrs. Gordon Dexter, gift; to the Fogg Art Museum, 1942.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of Mrs. Gordon Dexter
Accession Year
1942
Object Number
1942.180
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Publication History

  • Ernst von dem Knesebeck, Geschichte der churhannoverschen Truppen in Gibraltar, Minorca und Ostindien, Im Verlage der Helwingschen Hof-Buchhandlung (Hannover, Germany, 1845), p. 89
  • Henry T. Tuckerman, Book of the Artists: American Artist Life, Comprising Biographical and Critical Sketches of American Artists, Preceded by an Historical Account of the Rise and Progress of Art in America, Putnam (New York, NY, 1867), p. 79
  • Augustus Thorndyke Perkins, A Sketch of the Life and a List of Some of the Works of John Singleton Copley, J. R. Osgood & Company (Boston, MA, 1873), p. 132
  • K. E. A. von Hugo, Geschichte der im Fürstentum Calenberg begürterten familie von Hugo (1873), p. 29
  • Martha Babcock Amory, The Domestic and Artistic Life of John Singleton Copley, R.A., Houghton Mifflin Company (Boston, MA, 1882), pp. 93-94
  • Frank William Bayley, The Life and Works of John Singleton Copley: Founded on the Work of Augustus Thorndike Perkins, The Taylor Press (Boston, MA, 1915), pp. 34, 36, 151, 225
  • Theodore Bolton and Henry Lorin Binsse, "John Singleton Copley", The Antiquarian (New York, NY, December 1930), pp. 116-118., p. 83
  • "Gifts", Bulletin of the Fogg Art Museum, Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, November 1942), vol. X, no. 1, p. 3
  • The catalogue of Old and New England; an exhibition of American painting of colonial and early republican days, together with English painting of the same time, exh. cat., Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art (Providence, RI, 1945), p. 51, cat. 21, ill.
  • James Thomas Flexner, John Singleton Copley, Houghton Mifflin Company (Boston, 1948), pp. 96, 129, pl. 31
  • L'Art dans les Collections Universitaires Américaines, exh. cat., Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels (Brussels, Belgium, 1956), no. 13
  • University Collections, exh. cat., College Art Association of America (New York, 1956), p. 19, no. 13, ill.
  • Oeuvres d'art des musées universitaires Americains: peintures, sculptures anciennes et modernes, exh. cat., Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen (Lyon, France, 1957), no. 5, pl. 10, cover ill.
  • John Dos Passos, Prospects of a Golden Age, Prentice-Hall (New York, 1959), p. 46, ill.
  • John Singleton Copley, exh. cat., National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C, 1965), pp. 111, 113, cat. 86, ill.
  • Jules David Prown, John Singleton Copley, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA, 1966), vol. 2, pp. 327, 329, 402, 423, pl. 498
  • Elizabeth Ripley, Copley: A Biography, J. B. Lippincott (Philadelphia, PA, 1967), pp. 62-63, ill.
  • Robert Myron and Abner Sundell, Art in America: from Colonial Days through the Nineteenth Century, Crowell-Collier Press (New York, NY, 1969), p. 47, ill.
  • William Dunlap, History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States, Dover Publications Inc. (New York, 1969), vol. I, p. 106
  • Robert Plate, John Singleton Copley: America's First Great Artist, David McKay (New York, NY, 1969), pp. 135-136, ill. opp. p. 90
  • Kenyon Castle Bolton, III, Peter G. Huenink, Earl A. Powell III, Harry Z. Rand, and Nanette C. Sexton, American Art at Harvard, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 1972), cat. 10, ill.
  • James N. Carpenter, Color in Art: A Tribute to Arthur Pope, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 1974), pp. 83-84, cat. 42, ill.
  • Edgar P. Richardson, "Painting (1770-75)", The American Art Journal, Kennedy Galleries, Inc. (New York, NY, May 1975), vol 7, no. 1, pp. 23-33, p. 24, ill.
  • John Singleton Copley (1738-1815), Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828), Benjamin West (1738-1820) in America and England, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Boston, MA, 1976), pp. 16, 34-35, cat. 25, ill.
  • The Martial Face: The Military Portrait in Britain 1760-1900, exh. cat., Brown University and David Winton Bell Gallery (Providence, RI, 1991), p. 98, no. 16a
  • Emily Ballew Neff, ed., John Singleton Copley in England, exh. cat., The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (Houston, TX, 1995), pp. 158-159, cat. 34, ill.
  • Emily Ballew Neff, "John Singleton Copley: The Artist as 'Realist' and London Impresario" (1997), University of Texas at Austin, p. 195
  • Kimberly Orcutt, Process and Paradox: The Historical Pictures of John Singleton Copley, exh. cat., Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 2004), pp. 6-7, ill., 12
  • Emily Ballew Neff and Kaylin H. Weber, American Adversaries: West and Copley in a Transatlantic World, exh. cat., The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (Houston, TX, 2013), pp. 216-218, fig. 205
  • Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr. and Melissa Renn, American Paintings at Harvard, Volume One: Paintings, Watercolors, and Pastels by Artists Born before 1826, Yale University Press (U.S.) and Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge and New Haven, 2014), pp. 154-156, cat. 98, ill.

Exhibition History

  • Old and New England, Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, 01/19/1945 - 02/19/1945
  • University Collections, [Unknown venue, Malmo, Sweden], Malmo, 06/30/1956 - 07/15/1956; Centraal Museum Utrecht, Utrecht, 08/04/1956 - 09/08/1956; City Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham, 09/18/1956 - 10/14/1956; Senate House, London, 10/22/1956 - 10/27/1956; Hatton Gallery, Newcastle, 11/05/1956 - 11/17/1956; Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Brussels, 12/08/1956 - 12/30/1956; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Liège, Liege, 01/12/1957 - 02/10/1957
  • John Singleton Copley, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 09/18/1965 - 10/31/1965; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 11/20/1965 - 01/02/1966; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, 01/22/1966 - 03/06/1966
  • American Art at Harvard, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 04/19/1972 - 06/18/1972
  • Color in Art: A Tribute to Arthur Pope, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 04/25/1974 - 06/16/1974
  • Copley, Stuart and West in America and England, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, 10/17/1976 - 11/07/1976
  • Master Paintings from the Fogg Collection, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 04/13/1977 - 08/31/1977
  • The Martial Face: the Military Portrait in Britain 1760-1900, David Winton Bell Gallery, Providence, 01/26/1991 - 03/03/1991
  • John Singleton Copley in England, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 10/11/1995 - 01/07/1996; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, 02/04/1996 - 04/28/1996
  • Process and Paradox: The Historical Pictures of John Singleton Copley, Harvard University Art Museums, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 05/08/2004 - 08/29/2004
  • 32Q: 2240 18th Century, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 08/06/2024

Subjects and Contexts

  • Google Art Project

Related Works

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu