Mrs. Sylvester (Abigail Pickman) Gardiner John Singleton Copley (American, 1738-1815). Mrs. Sylvester (Abigail Pickman) Gardiner, ca. 1772. Oil on canvas, 50 3/8 x 40 in. (128 x cm). 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 a

Mrs. Sylvester (Abigail Pickman) Gardiner John Singleton Copley (American, 1738-1815). Mrs. Sylvester (Abigail Pickman) Gardiner, ca. 1772. Oil on canvas, 50 3/8 x 40 in. (128 x cm). 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. American Art ca. 1772

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