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  • A PORTRAIT BY JOHN SINGLETON COPLEY GIFTED TO THE TATE

    John Singleton Copley, The Fountaine Family, 1776 – Accepted under the Cultural Gifts Scheme by HM Government from David W Posnett OBE and allocated to Tate 2016

    Born in Boston of Irish parents John Singleton Copley is considered the greatest of American 18th century artists. His father was from Limerick, his mother was a Singleton from Co. Clare. Active in Boston from 1753 to 1774 he moved to England in 1775 and was elected at Royal Academcian. A Loyalist he never returned to the US after the American Declaration of Independence in 1776.

    His portrait of The Fountaine Family has just been acquired by The Tate through Arts Council England’s Cultural Gift Scheme, introduced in 2013 to encourage life time giving to UK public collections. It shows the family, wealthy members of the Norfolk gentry, standing in an elegant drawing room at Narford Hall, their ancestral home.
    The work complements three Copleys in the Tate Collection, Portrait of Mrs. Gill c177071, painted in America and The Death of Major Peirson (1781) and The Collapse of the Earl of Chatham (1779-80), both painted in Britain.

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