COPLEY, JOHN SINGLETON English his torical painter, was born of Irish parents at Boston, Massachu setts. He was self-educated, and commenced his career as a portrait-painter in his native city. The germ of his reputation in England was a little picture of a boy and squirrel, exhibited at the Society of Arts in 1760. In 1774, after a successful career as a portrait painter in Boston, he went to Rome, and thence in 1775 to England. In 1777 he was admitted associate of the Royal Academy; in 1783 he was made Academician on the exhibition of his most famous picture, the "Death of Chatham," popular ized immediately by Bartolozzi's elaborate engraving; and in 17 90 he was commissioned to paint a portrait picture of the defence of Gibraltar. The "Death of Major Pierson," in the National Gallery, also deserves mention. Copley's powers appear to greatest advantage in his portraits. The Boston museum of fine arts owns his portraits of Samuel Adams, John Quincy Adams, General Joseph Warren, Mrs. Warren and others. He was the father of Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst.
See M. Badcock Amory, Life of Copley (Boston, 1872).