Lucretia Chandler, Mrs. John Murray

Artist John Singleton Copley (American, 1738–1815)

Date1763

Mediumoil on canvas

Dimensionscanvas: 126.7 × 101.6 cm (49 7/8 × 40 in.)
framed: 145.1 × 120.7 × 7 cm (57 1/8 × 47 1/2 × 2 3/4 in.)

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LineBequest of H. Daland Chandler

Terms

Object number1969.37

Label TextBy the 1760s, Copley was the preeminent portrait painter in colonial New England. Wealthy patrons, including Lucretia Chandler Murray (1730-1768) of Worcester, clamored to commission portraits from the Boston artist. Many of these patrons profited directly or indirectly from slavery. The transatlantic slave trade drove New England's mercantile economy and supported the lavish households of the elite class. Lucretia grew up in and married into slaveholding families. Copley was particularly adept at capturing the unique appearance of a sitter and the textures of different materials, as in Lucretia's lace cuffs and silk gown. Yet he also derived fashionable props, poses, and backgrounds from portraits of British nobility which he knew through prints. The combination of descriptive realism with borrowings from artistic conventions reflects both the wealth and cultural aspirations of his clientele. ProvenanceThe sitter, Lucretia Chandler [1730-1768] and her husband, John Murray [1720-1794]; 1794, by bequest to their daughter, Lucretia Murray [1762-1836]; 1836, by bequest to her cousin, Nathaniel Chanlder [1772-1852] and his wife, Dolly Chandler [1783-1869], South Lancaster, MA; to their daughter, Mary Greene Chandler Ware [Mrs. John Ware] [1818–1907], South Lancaster, MA; 1907, by bequest to her nephew, Francis Ward Chandler [1844–1926], Boston, MA; 1921, to his son, Henry Daland Chandler [1884–1969], Boston, MA; 1969, by bequest to the Worcester Art Museum.

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