Mrs. John Winthrop

John Singleton Copley

1773 · Oil on canvas · The American Wing

Hannah Winthrop (1727–1790) and her husband, John, a professor of mathematics and natural history at Harvard College, were renowned for their success in cultivating rare fruit. Here, Copley portrayed Mrs. Winthrop's face and clothing, as well as the surrounding setting, with great care and skill; she sits in a chair upholstered in silk damask and leans on a beautifully reflective mahogany tea table. The most telling objects in the painting are the nectarines she holds, one still attached to its branch. They are examples of a recently improved variety of the fruit, surely grown in the sitter's own Cambridge greenhouse.

Artist

John Singleton Copley

Date

1773

Medium

Oil on canvas

Culture

American

Department

The American Wing

Credit line

Morris K. Jesup Fund, 1931