Sir William Pepperrell (1746-1816) and His Family (work of art)

Key Ideas about this Work of Art

• Sir William Pepperrell was one of the wealthiest men in New England in the 18th century. When the American Revolution began, he supported the British government as a loyalist. In 1776 he moved to London, England, to escape the conflict. Artist John Singleton Copley painted this portrait of Pepperell and his family in London. 
• Copley originally painted portraits of prominent middle-class people in Boston. Some of the people he painted in Boston later became key figures in the American Revolution. Copley moved to London in 1774, where he painted portraits of wealthy patrons.
• This portrait of the Pepperrell family is a work of fiction. It was painted after William Pepperrell’s wife Elizabeth died from an illness, and after Pepperrell had lost his family’s wealth by fleeing to England. 
• The Pepperrell family fortune was largely based on slavery and the slave trade. Elizabeth Royall Pepperrell also came from a slave-holding family. One study for this portrait included a Black servant, but the figure was not included in the final version.
• “Scurf and scab” and “alligatoring” are terms used to describe the cracks that can be seen in this painting. This was a common problem for artists in the 19th century, especially in England. It happens when the top layer of paint dries before the deeper layers. The problem cannot be reversed, but the most obvious cracks can be inpainted to make them less visible. The cracks in this portrait have been inpainted.

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Copley left Boston just as the revolution began and settled in London, where he refashioned his painting style to appeal to aristocratic patrons. His first major commission came from an old Boston acquaintance. One of the wealthiest men in New England, Sir William Pepperrell was the sole heir to a well-known merchant and enslaver in Massachusetts whose shipping enterprises throughout the Atlantic world depended upon enslaved labor. A committed Loyalist to the Crown, Pepperrell was forced into exile in 1776. He lost his American properties and much of his fortune, and his family fled to England, but not before the untimely death of his wife, Elizabeth Royall Pepperrell.

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