John Singleton Copley, 1738–1815, American, active in Britain (from 1776)
Title:
Richard Heber
Date:
1782
Materials & Techniques:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
65 1/4 x 51 3/16 inches (165.7 x 130 cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1981.25.745
Classification:
Paintings
Collection:
Paintings and Sculpture
Subject Terms:
buckles | paddle (ball game equipment) | bat | child | stockings | ball | breeches | boy | cricket | ruffles | portrait | landscape
Currently On View:
Not on view
Exhibition History:
This Other Eden : British Paintings from the Paul Mellon Collection at Yale (Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1998-05-01 - 1998-07-05)This Other Eden : British Paintings from the Paul Mellon Collection at Yale (Queensland Art Gallery, 1998-07-15 - 1998-09-06)This Other Eden : British Paintings from the Paul Mellon Collection at Yale (Art Gallery of South Australia, 1998-09-16 - 1998-11-15)John Singleton Copley in England (National Gallery of Art, 1995-10-04 - 1996-01-07)John Singleton Copley in England (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1996-02-04 - 1996-04-28)
Publications:
[ Advertisement : Front Matter ] Agnew, Burlington Magazine, v. 128, no. 1003, October, 1986, p. xix, N1 B87 + (YCBA) Available online on JStor.Acquisitions : The First Decade 1977-1986, Yale Center for British Art , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1986, p. 12, no. 10, N590.2 A7 OVERSIZE (YCBA)American Artists and American Art - III, Magazine of Art, January, 1879, p.95, J10 M268 + (LSF) Available online in British Periodicals II databaseArt Treasures and Industrial Exhibition at Wrexham, British Architect and Northern Engineer, vol. 6, no. 4, July, 1876, p, 62, Available Online (British Periodicals II)Malcolm Cormack, Concise Catalogue of Paintings in the Yale Center for British Art, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1985, pp. 68-69, N590.2 A83 (YCBA)J. Davies, Art Treasures Collection of North Wales and the Border Counties at Wrexham, 1876, Academy, no. 222, August 5, 1876, p. 144, British PeriodicalsAllen Guttmann, Sports and American art from Benjamin West to Andy Warhol, Amherst, MA, 2011, pp. 21-22, pl. 2, N8250 .G88X 2011 (LC) (HAAS)Julia Marciari-Alexander, This other Eden : Paintings from the Yale Center for British Art, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1998, pp. 106-7, no. 39, ND1314.3 Y36 1998 (YCBA)Paul Mellon's Legacy : a passion for British art [large print labels], , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2007, v. 3, N5220 M552 P381 2007 OVERSIZE (YCBA)Jules D. Prown, John Singleton Copley ..., 1, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1966, vol. 2, pp. 294-95 (v.2), fig. 424, NJ18 C75 +P76 Oversize (YCBA)Duncan Robinson, Acquisitions : The First Decade 1977 - 1986, , Burlington Magazine, vol. 128, October 1986, p. 12, no. 10, N1 B87 128:3 OVERSIZE (YCBA)Denys Sutton, Art Treasures on the Move, Apollo, v. 114, no. 235, September 1981, p. 145, pl. II, N1 A54 + (YCBA)Angus Trumble, The Finger : A Handbook, , Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2010, p. 178, GT498.F46 T78 2010 (YCBA)
Gallery Label:
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, to a family of Irish immigrants, John Singleton Copley was largely self-taught. In the 1760s, he sent pictures to London for exhibition with the Society of Artists. His work was praised by Joshua Reynolds and Benjamin West, but they were also critical of his “hard line” and coloring. Despite unrivaled success as a portraitist in the colonies, Copley left for England in 1774 shortly before the American Revolution. In London he maintained a successful practice for the next forty years. The clergyman Reginald Heber commissioned this portrait of his son Richard (1774–1833), aged eight, when Copley was at the height of his powers. In a loose and vigorous composition, Heber is cast as a cricketer leaning casually on his bat and looking fearlessly toward the bowler. Nothing in the portrait suggests the sitter’s studious future, as a classical scholar and one of the leading book collectors of his generation. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016