Hugh Hall

John Singleton Copley

1758 · Pastel on off-white laid paper, mounted on canvas · The American Wing

The subject of this powerful study is Hugh Hall, a distiller, son of the governor of Barbados, and a Boston merchant of great affluence. The portrait reveals the young Copley's earliest attempt to master the difficult medium of pastel crayons. This is not an effortless performance. The picture bears the scars of his struggle to bend an obdurate medium to his will, but what the picture lacks in elegance it more than makes up in forcefulness. This portrait of Hugh Hall is probably Copley's first pastel.

Artist

John Singleton Copley

Date

1758

Medium

Pastel on off-white laid paper, mounted on canvas

Culture

American

Department

The American Wing

Credit line

Purchase, Estate of George Strichman and Sandra Strichman Gifts; Bequest of Vera Ruth Miller, in memory of her father, Henry Miller, Bequest of Josephine N. Hopper, John Stewart Kennedy Fund, and Gifts of Yvonne Moën Cumerford, Berry B. Tracy, and Mr. and Mrs. Jeremiah Milbank, by exchange; Mr. and Mrs. Leonard L. Milberg Gift, and funds from various donors, 1996