Copley work acquired by The Tate compliments other works

Born in Boston of Irish parents, John Singleton Copley is considered the greatest of American 18th century artists.

His father was from Limerick, his mother was a Singleton from Co Clare.

Active in Boston from 1753 to 1774, he moved to England in 1775 and was elected at Royal Academcian.

A Loyalist, he never returned to the US after the American Declaration of Independence in 1776.

His portrait, The Fountaine Family has just been acquired by The Tate through Council England’s Cultural Gift Scheme, introduced in 2013 to encourage life time giving to UK public collections.

It shows the family, wealthy members of the Norfolk gentry, standing in an elegant drawing room at Narford Hall, their ancestral home.

It complements three Copleys in the Tate Collection, Portrait of Mrs. Gill c1770-71, painted in America and The Death of Major Peirson (1781) and The Collapse of the Earl of Chatham (1779-80), both painted in Britain.