Jonathan Mountfort, ca. 1753

  • John Singleton Copley, American, 1738-1815

Oil on canvas

  • Unframed: 29 1/4 × 24 1/2 inches (74.3 × 62.2 cm)
  • 37 1/2 × 32 5/8 × 2 5/16 inches (95.3 × 82.9 × 5.9 cm)

Founders Society Purchase, Gibbs-Williams Fund

58.360

On View

  • American, Level 2, West

Department

American Art before 1950

Signed and dated, lower right: John S. Copley | pinx 1753 (?) or 1755

Inscribed, lower right: John S. Copley | pinx 1753 (?) or 1755

ca. 1753-1785, Jonathan Mountfort (Boston, Massachusetts, USA)

his daughter, Mrs. Thomas Pitts [Elizabeth Mountfort] (possibly Boston, Massachusetts, USA)

by 1883, her daughter, Sarah Pitts Farlin (Detroit, Michigan, USA)

by 1938, her great nephew, S. Lendall Pitts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)

Mrs. S. Lendall Pitts (Norfolk, Virginia, USA). 1958-present, purchase by the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)

Perkins, Augustus Thorndike. A Sketch of the Life and List of Some Works of John Singleton Copley. Boston, 1873, pp. 13, 52. Goodwin, D. Life and Services of James Pitts and his Sons. Chicago, 1881, pp. 48-49. The Detroit Art Loan Exhibition. Exh. cat., Detroit Museum of Art. Detroit, 1883, p. 19, no. 147. Goodwin, D. Provincial Pictures. Chicago, 1886, p. 73. Earle, Alice Morse. Child Life in Colonial Days. New York, 1899, p. 58 [facing]. Bayley, Frank W. THE LIFE AND WORKS OF JOHN SINGLETON COPLEY. Boston, Massachusetts: The Taylor Press, 1915, p. 95. Early American Painting. Exh. cat., Brooklyn Museum. Brooklyn, 1917, no. 16. Parker, Barbara N. and A.B. Wheeler. John Singleton Copley: American Portraits in Oil, Pastel , and Miniature, with Biographical Sketches. Boston, 1938, p. 136 (pl. 4). John Singleton Copley, 1738-1815. Exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts. Boston, 1938, p. 25, no. 54. Burroughs, Alan. "Young Copley." Art in America 31, 4 (October 1943): pp. 161-162. Portraits of Eight Generations of the Pitts Family. Exh. cat., Detroit Institute of Arts. Detroit, 1959, pp. 34-35. Payne, Elizabeth. “Pitts Family Portraits of the 18th Century.” Antiques (January 1960): p. 89. Prown, Jules D. John Singleton Copley. Cambridge, MA, 1966, pp. 14, 20, 22, 27, 32, 34, 41, 223-224 (fig. 26). Shaw, Nancy Rivard, et al. American Paintings in the Detroit Institute of Arts, Volume I. New York, 1991, pp. 54-56 (ill.).

John Singleton Copley, Jonathan Mountfort, ca. 1753, oil on canvas. Detroit Institute of Arts, Founders Society Purchase, Gibbs-Williams Fund, 58.360.