John Singleton Copley

Copley was barely 20 when he was commissioned to paint Theodore Atkinson, Jr., the heir to vast New Hampshire landholdings. He staged Atkinson as a young lord striding forward to survey his country estate, adapting the pose from English engravings. Atkinson’s suit was also a fashionable invention, permitting Copley to advertise his skill at rendering sumptuous textiles by dressing his subject in an expensive silk waistcoat. Unlike portraits of young British aristocrats on which it is modeled, no classical ruins or attributes of learning are present. The combination of likeness, costume, and verdant acreage effectively signaled Atkinson’s distinguished pedigree and brilliant future.