About the Artwork
Jonathan Mountfort
ca. 1753
John Singleton Copley
1738-1815
American
Unknown
Oil on canvas
Unframed: 29 1/4 × 24 1/2 inches (74.3 × 62.2 cm) Framed: 37 1/2 × 32 5/8 × 2 5/16 inches (95.3 × 82.9 × 5.9 cm)
Paintings
American Art before 1950
Founders Society Purchase, Gibbs-Williams Fund
58.360
This work is in the public domain.
Markings
Signed and dated, lower right: John S. Copley | pinx 1753 (?) or 1755
Inscribed, lower right: John S. Copley | pinx 1753 (?) or 1755
Provenance
ca. 1753-1785, Jonathan Mountfort (Boston, Massachusetts, USA)
his daughter, Mrs. Thomas Pitts [Elizabeth Mountfort] (possibly Boston, Massachusetts, USA)
by 1883, her daughter, Sarah Pitts Farlin (Detroit, Michigan, USA)
by 1938, her great nephew, S. Lendall Pitts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)
Mrs. S. Lendall Pitts (Norfolk, Virginia, USA). 1958-present, purchase by the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)
For more information on provenance and its important function in the museum, please visit:
Provenance pageExhibition History
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The exhibition history of a number of objects in our collection only begins after their acquisition by the museum, and may reflect an incomplete record.
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Perkins, Augustus Thorndike. A Sketch of the Life and List of Some Works of John Singleton Copley. Boston, 1873, pp. 13, 52.
Goodwin, D. Life and Services of James Pitts and his Sons. Chicago, 1881, pp. 48-49.
The Detroit Art Loan Exhibition. Exh. cat., Detroit Museum of Art. Detroit, 1883, p. 19, no. 147.
Goodwin, D. Provincial Pictures. Chicago, 1886, p. 73.
Earle, Alice Morse. Child Life in Colonial Days. New York, 1899, p. 58 [facing].
Bayley, Frank W. THE LIFE AND WORKS OF JOHN SINGLETON COPLEY. Boston, Massachusetts: The Taylor Press, 1915, p. 95.
Early American Painting. Exh. cat., Brooklyn Museum. Brooklyn, 1917, no. 16.
Parker, Barbara N. and A.B. Wheeler. John Singleton Copley: American Portraits in Oil, Pastel , and Miniature, with Biographical Sketches. Boston, 1938, p. 136 (pl. 4).
John Singleton Copley, 1738-1815. Exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts. Boston, 1938, p. 25, no. 54.
Burroughs, Alan. "Young Copley." Art in America 31, 4 (October 1943): pp. 161-162.
Portraits of Eight Generations of the Pitts Family. Exh. cat., Detroit Institute of Arts. Detroit, 1959, pp. 34-35.
Payne, Elizabeth. “Pitts Family Portraits of the 18th Century.” Antiques (January 1960): p. 89.
Prown, Jules D. John Singleton Copley. Cambridge, MA, 1966, pp. 14, 20, 22, 27, 32, 34, 41, 223-224 (fig. 26).
Shaw, Nancy Rivard, et al. American Paintings in the Detroit Institute of Arts, Volume I. New York, 1991, pp. 54-56 (ill.).
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Credit Line for Reproduction
John Singleton Copley, Jonathan Mountfort, ca. 1753, oil on canvas. Detroit Institute of Arts, Founders Society Purchase, Gibbs-Williams Fund, 58.360.
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