Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College
Identification and Creation
Object Number
H25
People
John Singleton Copley, American (Boston, MA 1738 - 1815 London, England)
Thomas Hollis III (1659 - 1731)
Frame by Unidentified American Framemaker
Title
Thomas Hollis III (1659-1731)
Classification
Paintings
Work Type
painting
Date
1765-1766
Places
Creation Place: North America, United States, Massachusetts, Boston
Culture
American
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/299802
Physical Descriptions
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
238.1 x 147.3 cm (93 3/4 x 58 in.)
framed: 279.7 × 181.6 × 13.3 cm (110 1/8 × 71 1/2 × 5 1/4 in.)
Provenance
Commissioned by the Harvard Corporation, 1765
Acquisition and Rights
Credit Line
Harvard University Portrait Collection, Commissioned by the Harvard Corporation, 1765
Accession Year
1765
Object Number
H25
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
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Publication History

Guernsey Jones, "The Hollis Portraits" (unpublished manuscript, Harvard Art Museums, n.d.).

Benjamin Peirce, A History of Harvard University, From its Foundation, in the Year 1636 to the Period of the American Revolution, Brown, Shattuck and Company (Cambridge, MA, 1833), p. 157, appendix p. 109

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. 72

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), pp. 72-73

William Garrott Brown, A List of Portraits in the Various Buildings of Harvard University, Harvard University Library (Cambridge, MA, 1898), p. 23

Letters and Papers of John Singleton Copley and Henry Pelham, Kennedy Galleries, Inc. (New York, 1914 reprint), p. 75

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), p. 144

Cuthbert Lee, Early American Portrait Painters: The Fourteen Principal Earliest Native-born Painters, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT, 1929), p. 74

Theodore Bolton and Henry Lorin Binsse, "John Singleton Copley", The Antiquarian (New York, NY, December 1930), pp. 116-118., p. 116

Laura M. Huntsinger, Harvard Portraits: A Catalogue of Portrait Paintings at Harvard University, ed. Alan Burroughs, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA, 1936), p. 75

Barbara N. Parker and Anne Bolling Wheeler, John Singleton Copley: American Portraits in Oil, Pastel and Miniature, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Boston, MA, 1938), pp. 104-105, pl. 72

Historical Records Survey, Division of Professional and Service Projects, Works Progress Administration, American Portraits, 1620-1825, found in Massachusetts, Volumes 1 and 2, Historical Records Survey (Boston, MA, 1939), p. 200, cat. 1056

Jules David Prown, John Singleton Copley, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA, 1966), vol. 1, pp. 43-45, 218, pl. 158

Louise Todd Ambler, Early Science at Harvard: Innovators and Their Instruments, 1765 - 1865, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, December 1969-January 1970), pp. 1, 7,4 cat. 1, ill. opp. p. 1

Alison Shepherd Lewis, "John Singleton Copley and American Full-Length Portraits: The Project of Harvard Hall" (1969), Unpublished, pp. 7-12, 17

Fogg Art Museum, Fogg Art Museum Annual Report, 1969-1970 (Cambridge, MA, 1971), p. 10, ill. p. 11

Christopher Reed, "New England Education's First Maecenas", Harvard Magazine (Cambridge, MA, October 1973), pp. 30-32, pp. 31-32, ill. p. 30.

Linda Ayres, Harvard Divided, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 1976), pp. 151-152, cat. 86, ill.

Ellen G. Miles, "Portraits of the Heroes of Louisbourg, 1745-1751", American Art Journal (Winter 1983), vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 48-66, p. 50

Carol Troyen, "John Singleton Copley and the Grand Manner: 'Colonial Nathaniel Sparhawk'", Journal of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (New York, NY, 1989), vol. 1, pp. 96-103, p. 101, fig. 4

Sandra Grindlay, "Harvard's Portraits: An American Treasure", Harvard University Art Museums Review (Fall 1992), vol. II, no. 1, pp. 6-7, p. 6

Morrison Heckscher and Leslie Greene Bowman, American Rococo, 1750-1775: Elegance in Ornament, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, 1992), p. 138

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, "Furniture as Social History: Gender, Property and Memory in the Decorative Arts", American Furniture, Chipstone Foundation (Milwaukee, WI, 1995), pp. 39-68, pp. 45-46, fig. 7

Carrie Rebora and Paul J. Staiti, John Singleton Copley in America, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, NY, 1995), pp. 56, 82, 93, 156, ill. p. 5, fig. 2

John T. Bethell, Richard M. Hunt, and Robert Shenton, Harvard A to Z, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA, 2004), p. 276

Kimberly Orcutt, Process and Paradox: The Historical Pictures of John Singleton Copley, exh. cat., Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 2004), p. 12

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. 20, 22, 24, 135-137, 426, cat. 84, ill.

Jonathan Shaw and Jennifer Carling, "The Lost Museum: Teachings of the Philosophy Chamber, Recreated", Harvard Magazine (Cambridge, MA, 2017), pp. 42-49, p. 42

Ethan Lasser, ed., The Philosophy Chamber: Art and Science in Harvard’s Teaching Cabinet, 1766–1820, exh. cat., Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 2017), p. 70, Plate 6; pp. 17-19, p. 23 Fig. 14, p. 35 Fig. 25 in Ethan W. Lasser's "Harvard's Teaching Cabinet"; p. 57 in María Dolores Sánchez-Jáuregui's "A Repository of Gifts"; pp. 181-183 in Aleksandr Bierig's "Transposition"; pp. 231-234, Figs. 11-12, 14-15 in Teri Hensick and Kate Smith's "Copley's Working Practice"; p. 259 in Andrew Gelfand's "Chronology"

Exhibition History

Early Science at Harvard, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 12/18/1969 - 02/01/1970

Harvard Divided, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 06/03/1976 - 10/10/1976

Process and Paradox: The Historical Pictures of John Singleton Copley, Harvard University Art Museums, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 05/08/2004 - 08/29/2004

The Philosophy Chamber: Art and Science in Harvard’s Teaching Cabinet, 1766–1820, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 05/19/2017 - 12/31/2017; The Hunterian Art Gallery, Glasgow, 04/17/2018 - 07/15/2018

Related Works

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