Mrs. Sylvanus Bourne

John Singleton Copley

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Mercy Gorham (1695–1782) was born and raised on Cape Cod, in the colony of Massachusetts. In 1718 she married Sylvanus Bourne, a prosperous merchant, and two years later they settled in the port town of Barnstable. The couple had eleven children. Copley painted Mrs. Bourne three years after her husband’s death, when she was seventy-one years old. She holds a book in her lap and gazes toward the viewer with intelligence and good humor.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art