About the Artwork
Although seven-year-old Jonathan Mountfort grew up in Boston, John Singleton Copley surrounded him with worldly details from European mezzotint prints. The Mediterranean cypress trees, rocky setting, and floral wreath were probably inspired by portrait prints of European aristocrats and royals, which Copley would have seen in the studio of his stepfather, the engraver and painter Peter Pelham (1697 – 1751).
Copley painted his subject when he was about fifteen years old. He did not have any formal training and most likely learned the fundamentals of artmaking from Pelham. His earliest works like this one date to 1753 – 55, when he created a small group of portraits and copied several mythological subjects from prints.
Jonathan Mountfort
ca. 1753
John Singleton Copley
1738-1815
American
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Oil on canvas
Unframed: 29 1/4 × 24 1/2 inches (74.3 × 62.2 cm) Framed: 37 1/2 × 32 5/8 × 2 5/16 inches (95.3 × 82.9 × 5.9 cm)
Paintings
American Art before 1950
Founders Society Purchase, Gibbs-Williams Fund
58.360
Public Domain
Markings
Signed and dated, lower right: John S. Copley | pinx 1753 (?) or 1755
Inscribed, lower right: John S. Copley | pinx 1753 (?) or 1755
Provenance
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)
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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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.).
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Credit Line for Reproduction
John Singleton Copley, Jonathan Mountfort, ca. 1753, oil on canvas. Detroit Institute of Arts, Founders Society Purchase, Gibbs-Williams Fund, 58.360.
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