Artwork
Anna Dummer Powell
Anna Dummer Powell is an oil painting by the Rococo painting artist John Singleton Copley. It dates from 1764 and is held in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art.
About this work
Technique & Style
The painting is held in the Cleveland Museum of Art's collection, where it is catalogued as a painting and attributed to John Singleton Copley.
Anna Dummer Powell is executed in oil paint on canvas, a standard support for mid-eighteenth-century Anglo-American portraiture. The canvas measures 126.6 cm in height and 100.6 cm in width, giving it a vertical, half-length format suited to a single sitter. Painted in 1764, the work relies on the layered handling characteristic of John Singleton Copley's Boston-period practice, using oil glazes to model flesh and fabric over a prepared ground. The medium and dimensions are consistent with Copley's other full-scale colonial portraits of prominent figures.
The painting is held in the Cleveland Museum of Art's collection, where it is catalogued as a painting and attributed to John Singleton Copley. No condition reports or stylistic analyses are provided in the available sources.
History & Provenance
Created in 1764, the oil-on-canvas portrait of Anna Dummer Powell was executed by John Singleton Copley in the United States. The work depicts Anne Dummer and measures 126.6 cm in height by 100.6 cm in width. While the specific circumstances of its initial commission and early ownership remain unrecorded in the provided sources, the painting's documented history resumes in the twentieth century. It entered the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1980, acquiring the accession number 1980.202.
The painting is part of the Cleveland Museum of Art's collection, catalogued under accession number 1980.202, and has been displayed in exhibitions at the museum.
The work, an oil on canvas painting created in 1764, measures 126.6 cm by 100.6 cm and depicts Anne Dummer.
It was included in the Cleveland Museum of Art's 1980 acquisition and has remained in their permanent collection.
Overview
John Singleton Copley’s portrait of Anna Dummer Powell, executed in oil in 1764, presents a young woman seated in a richly upholstered red chair. She wears a dark gown complemented by a white cap, and rests a hand on a small table while holding a fan. The composition is set against a deep, muted background that accentuates the sitter’s features and attire.
Subject & Meaning
The work captures Anna Dummer Powell in a poised, contemplative stance, suggesting both personal refinement and the social expectations of women in mid‑eighteenth‑century New England. Her calm expression, modest hand gestures, and the inclusion of a fan, a common accessory of the period, communicate a blend of domestic virtue and genteel elegance.
Context
In the 1760s, portraiture served as a visual record of status and identity among New England’s affluent families. Copley’s work exemplifies this practice, combining meticulous observation with fashionable European stylistic trends, thereby bridging colonial American tastes with broader Atlantic artistic currents.
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Artist & collection
Artist
John Singleton Copley (July 3, 1738 – September 9, 1815) was an American-born British painter active in both the Thirteen Colonies and England.
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