Elizabeth Green (Mrs. Ebenezer Storer II)

John Singleton Copley

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

John Singleton Copley produced at least fifty-five pastel portraits before he left America for England in 1774, a rare achievement for a colonial painter in such a costly, rare, and painstaking medium. Among the clients willing to trust Copley with renderings other than in oil was the Storer family of Boston. In 1767, Copley drew portraits of Ebenezer and Mary Storer, their daughter, Mary (Mrs. Edward Green), and their son, Ebenezer Jr., and his wife, Elizabeth. All five portraits are now in the Museum. Copley took full advantage of the brilliance afforded by pastel crayons to re-create Ebenezer Storer's figured silk damask banyan, the soft pile of his velvet turban, and the stubble on his sideburns and cheeks. He had ordered a full array of the crayons from the great Swiss master Jean-étienne Liotard, but had never seen a work in the medium, making his accomplishment all the more astonishing.

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