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Mrs. Sylvester (Abigail Pickman) Gardiner

John Singleton Copley

American Art

In these two paintings, Abigail Pickman and Elizabeth Goldthwaite sat for their marriage portraits. As was typical of upper-class white women in the colonial United States, they likely did not control how they were represented in these images, which were intended to project the family’s stability and wealth.

Before the American Revolution, the Boston painter John Singleton Copley was the most sought-after artist in the country. Copley’s portraits, highly regarded for their skillful rendering of luxurious items such as silks and pearls, were synonymous with the tastes of the eighteenth-century social elite, both in the United States and England.
MEDIUM Oil on canvas
DATES ca. 1772
DIMENSIONS 50 3/8 x 40 in. (128 x 101.6 cm) frame: 58 1/4 x 49 1/2 x 3 1/2 in. (148 x 125.7 x 8.9 cm)  (show scale)
SIGNATURE Unsigned
COLLECTIONS American Art
ACCESSION NUMBER 65.60
CREDIT LINE Dick S. Ramsay Fund
MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view
CAPTION John Singleton Copley (American, 1738–1815). Mrs. Sylvester (Abigail Pickman) Gardiner, ca. 1772. Oil on canvas, 50 3/8 x 40 in. (128 x 101.6 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Dick S. Ramsay Fund, 65.60 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 65.60_PS20.jpg)
IMAGE overall, 65.60_PS20.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2024
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