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Mrs. Daniel Hubbard (Mary Greene)

Painted portrait of woman in green dress and cloud backdrop.
CC0 Public Domain Designation

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  • Painted portrait of woman in green dress and cloud backdrop.

Date:

c. 1764

Artist:

John Singleton Copley (American, 1738–1815)

About this artwork

John Singleton Copley was largely self-taught, his only formal training from his stepfather Peter Pelham, an English artist who specialized in mezzotint engraving. He nonetheless garnered considerable success as a portrait painter before the Revolutionary War. The sitter here, Mary Greene Hubbard, was a member of Boston’s merchant class (Copley’s portrait of her husband, Daniel Hubbard [1947.27], is also in the Art Institute collection). Her pose, gown, and background were precisely copied from a British engraving of a noblewoman, yet Copley distinguished the work as his own by capturing the figure’s individual features as well as the surfaces and colors of the luxurious fabrics. A decade later, he left colonial Massachusetts for England to further his career and simultaneously escape the strong political divides among family, friends, and patrons amid the impending Revolution.

Status

On View, Gallery 167

Department

Arts of the Americas

Artist

John Singleton Copley

Title

Mrs. Daniel Hubbard (Mary Greene)

Place

England (Place depicted)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

c. 1764

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

127.6 × 100.9 cm (50 1/4 × 39 3/4 in.)

Credit Line

Art Institute of Chicago Purchase Fund

Reference Number

1947.28

IIIF Manifest  The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.

https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/59787/manifest.json

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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