Rescue Group, between 1777 and 1778

  • John Singleton Copley, American, 1738-1815

Black chalk heightened with white, squared for transfer in red chalk, on green-gray laid paper

  • Sheet (irregular): 14 1/4 × 21 3/4 inches (36.2 × 55.2 cm)
  • 24 1/4 × 30 1/4 × 1 1/8 inches (61.6 × 76.8 × 2.9 cm)

City of Detroit Purchase

48.203

Department

Prints, Drawings & Photographs

This drawing is a preparatory sketch made for the DIA’s painting of Watson and the Shark (acc. no. 46.310).

In pencil, upper right: The Length of the Ship is 2 feet 2 inches -------

(M. Knoedler & Co., New York, New York, USA)

1948-present, purchase by the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)

Newberry, John S. "Four Drawings by Copley," Bulletin of the DIA 28, no. 2 (1949): pp. 33-35, p. 33 (fig. 3). Prown, Jules David. John Singleton Copley, vol. 2 [of 2]. Cambridge, 1966, viii, pp. 272–274, (fig. 378). Neff, Emily Ballew. "Like Gudgeons to a Worm: John Singleton Copley’s 'Watson and the Shark’ and the Cultures of Natural History.” In American Adversaries: Wes and Copley in a Tranatlantic World. Houston, 2013, pp. 184-184; p. 184 (fig. 176).

John Singleton Copley, Rescue Group, between 1777 and 1778, black chalk heightened with white, squared for transfer in red chalk, on green-gray laid paper. Detroit Institute of Arts, City of Detroit Purchase, 48.203.