John Singleton Copley, R.A. 1738-1815

Mrs. J.W. Tilton, Haverhill, Massachusetts (granddaughter of John Hancock, nephew of the sitter)
Frank W. Bayley
Knoedler & Co., New York
Private Collection, 1929 (acquired from the above)
By descent to the present owner

Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, John Singleton Copley, 1738-1815, September 1965-March 1966, no. 301
Washington, D.C., The National Portrait Gallery, The Dye is Now Cast: The Road to American Independence, April-November 1975, no. 55, p. 95, illustrated in color
New York, Hirschl & Adler Galleries, American Portraits by John Singleton Copley, December 1975-January 1976, no. 40, illustrated

Augustus Thorndike Perkins, A Sketch of the Life and a List of some of the Works by John Singleton Copley, Boston, Massachusetts, 1873, p. 70
Frank W. Bayley, The Life and Works of John Singleton Copley, Boston, 1915, p. 137
Frank W. Bayley, Five Colonial Artists of New England: Joseph Badger, Joseph Blackburn, John Singleton Copley, Boston, 1929, p. 217, illustrated
Barbara Neville Parker and Anne Bolling Wheeler, John Singleton Copley, American Portraits in Oil, Pastel, and Miniature, with biographical sketch, Boston, 1938, pp. 96-99
Jules Prown, John Singleton Copley in America, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1966, no. 301, pp. 82, 84n, illustrated
Carrie Rebora Barratt, Paul Staiti, Erica Hirshler, Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr., and Carol Troyen, John Singleton Copley in America, New York, 1995, pp. 211-214

According to Paul Staiti in John Singleton Copley in America, “John Hancock (1737-1793) was at the threshold of his social, economic and political destiny when Copley painted him in 1765” (New York, 1995, p. 211).  Hancock’s father died when he was seven years old and he was adopted by his wealthy and powerful uncle, Boston businessman Thomas Hancock.  Thomas Hancock provided for his education at Boston Latin and Harvard College and offered him training at his successful transatlantic shipping firm, the House of Hancock.  Hancock eventually became a partner in his uncle’s business, and then the sole owner when his uncle died in 1764.  Copley’s 1765 portrait, featuring Hancock seated before an open account ledger, is now in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.  Staiti describes Copley’s austere image: “[Hancock] wears a dark blue frock coat trimmed in gold braid to accentuate the line of buttons and the edges of the plain wool material.  On his head is a modest bob wig” (John Singleton Copley in America, New York, 1995, p. 211).  The year the portrait was painted, Hancock’s extravagant lifestyle was likely a target for the frequent assaults on the flamboyant elite by such men as Samuel Adams, and this deliberately modest depiction of him was perhaps an attempt to present himself as a “man of the people.”  Copley painted two additional portraits of Hancock between 1770 and 1772, the present work and a similar waist-length version at the Massachusetts Historical Society.  Jules Prown has speculated that one of the portraits may have been painted after the election of May 27, 1772, in which Hancock and Adams were reelected to the House of Representatives.  Hancock was later elected president of the Continental Congress in 1775 and his is the most flamboyant and recognizable signature on the Declaration of Independence.  Later, he became the Governor of Massachusetts and served for five years, before refusing reelection.  He was elected again in 1787 and served in that office until his death.