About the Artwork
This portrait is one of nearly forty the Boston artist John Singleton Copley painted during a six-month stay in New York City in 1771. He befriended and depicted British field engineer John Montresor (1736 – 1799) during this stay. When Montresor traveled to Boston in November 1771, Copley asked him for advice about the home he was building. The artist wrote to his half-brother Henry Pelham, who was overseeing the construction, “If you are at a loss about any thing [sic] Capt. Montresor can and will sett [sic] you right with pleasure.”
Montresor holds a book titled FIELD ENGINR, referencing his profession in the Royal Corps of Engineers. He traveled to Detroit in 1763 and again in 1764, drawing maps of Fort Detroit and the surrounding shore of the Detroit River during a period of organized resistance by Indigenous peoples across the Great Lakes against the British army’s assertion of control in the region.
John Montresor
ca. 1771
John Singleton Copley
1738-1815
American
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Oil on canvas
Unframed: 30 × 25 inches (76.2 × 63.5 cm) Framed: 38 × 33 × 3 1/2 inches (96.5 × 83.8 × 8.9 cm)
Paintings
American Art before 1950
Founders Society Purchase, Gibbs-Williams Fund
41.37
Public Domain
Markings
Signed, on the back, in paint: John Montresor b. 1736-1799 pinxt Copley
Inscribed, on the back, in paint: John Montresor b. 1736-1799 pinxt Copley
Provenance
the sitter, John Montresor (Belmont, Facersham, Kent, England);his son, Sir H. T. Montresor (Dene Hill, Kent, England);
Lt. Col. H. E. Montresor;
his brother, Charles M. Montresor (Stonely Grange, Cambridgeshire, England);
his son, Lt. Col. E. H. Montresor;
his daughter, Mrs. Joan Montresor Read;
The Montresor Family.
Howard Young.
1941, Feragil Galleries (New York, New York, USA)
1941-present, purchase by the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)
For more information on provenance, please visit:
Provenance pageExhibition History
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The exhibition history of a number of objects in our collection only begins after their acquisition by the museum, and may reflect an incomplete record.
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Suggest FeedbackPublished References
Jones, Guernsey, ed. Letters and Papers of John Singleton Copley and Harry Pelham, 1739-1776. The Massachusetts Historical Society Collection, vol. 71, 1914, p. 114.
Bayley, Frank W. The Life and Works of John Singleton Copley. Boston, 1915, p. 22.
Webster, John Clarence. “Life of John Montresor.” Royal Society of Canada Transactions, Third Series 22, 2 (1928).
The French in America, 1520-1880. Exh. cat., Detroit Institute of Arts. Detroit, 1951, no. 515.
Richardson, Edgar P. Paintings in America: The Story of 450 Years. Exh. cat., Detroit Institute of Arts. Detroit, 1957, p. 73 (fig. 26).
Davidson, Ruth. “Paintings in America: Seminar and Exhibition.” Antiques 71 (April 1957): p. 364.
American Realists. Exh. cat., Art Gallery of Hamilton. Ontario, 1961, no. 13.
Treasures in America. Exh. cat., Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Richmond, 1961, p. 93.
Pontiac Uprising 1763-1963. Exh. cat., Detroit Historical Museum. Detroit, 1963, no. 37.
Prown, Jules D. John S. Copley 1774-1815. Cambridge, MA, 1966, p. 22 (ill.).
Paul Revere’s Boston. Exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts. Boston, 1975, p. 137, no. 185 (ill.).
Bowler, R. Arthur. Logistics and the Failure of the British Army in America. Princeton, 1975.
Shaw, Nancy Rivard, et al. American Paintings in the Detroit Institute of Arts, Volume I. New York, 1991, pp. 59, 61-62 (ill.).
Hornsby, Stephen J. and Richard W. Judd, eds. Historical Atlas of Maine. Orono, ME, 2015, pl. 17.
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Credit Line for Reproduction
John Singleton Copley, John Montresor, ca. 1771, oil on canvas. Detroit Institute of Arts, Founders Society Purchase, Gibbs-Williams Fund, 41.37.
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