Epes Sargent

1750s

Self-education: engravings and anatomical studies

Copley is largely self-taught, copying engravings after Godfrey Kneller, Joshua Reynolds and other masters. A book of his studies of the figure, now at the British Museum, shows that before he was twenty he was making anatomical drawings with much care and precision.

1753–1774 · 活動地

Boston

1760s

A needy tobacconist’s son among Boston’s elite

The income Copley earned by painting in the 1760s was extraordinary for his town and time and raised the son of a needy tobacconist into the local aristocracy. The foremost personages of New England came to his painting-room as sitters.

30 September 1762

Asks Liotard for Swiss pastel crayons

Copley writes to the Swiss painter Jean-Étienne Liotard asking for a set of the best Swiss crayons for drawing portraits, in the hope that America will one day become a school of the fine arts. The pastels arrive and are put to use; Copley was a pioneer American pastellist.