John Singleton Copley | Explore & Learn | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

John Singleton Copley, American, 1738–1815
Mrs. Edward Green (Mary Storer), 1765
Pastel on paper mounted on canvas; 23 x 17 1/2 in. (58.4 x 44.5 cm)
Charles B. Curtis Fund, 1908 (08.1)

Both Copley and his affluent sitters would have been aware of the taste for pastels in Europe, and Copley, a notoriously slow painter, may have enjoyed the expedience and brilliance offered by the pastel crayons. Commissions from the closely related Green and Storer families of Boston accounted in large measure for Copley's extremely prolific production of pastel portraits during the mid-1760s. Mary Storer, who was born to Ebenezer and Mary Edwards Storer in 1736 and married Edward Green in 1757, was among the first in her family to sit for Copley. Despite a slightly awkward elongation of her neck, the portrait is among Copley's most successful works. Few masters were able to render satin, lace, pearls, flowers, and background drapery as effectively as Copley did.
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Photograph Credits


	John Singleton Copley, American, 1738–1815 Mrs. Edward Green (Mary Storer), 1765 Pastel on paper mounted on canvas; 23 x 17 1/2 in. (58.4 x 44.5 cm) Charles B. Curtis Fund, 1908 (08.1)
Both Copley and his affluent sitters would have been aware of the taste for pastels in Europe, and Copley, a notoriously slow painter, may have enjoyed the expedience and brilliance offered by the pastel crayons. Commissions from the closely related Green and Storer families of Boston accounted in large measure for Copley's extremely prolific production of pastel portraits during the mid-1760s. Mary Storer, who was born to Ebenezer and Mary Edwards Storer in 1736 and married Edward Green in 1757, was among the first in her family to sit for Copley. Despite a slightly awkward elongation of her neck, the portrait is among Copley's most successful works. Few masters were able to render satin, lace, pearls, flowers, and background drapery as effectively as Copley did. Click on the image to see a larger version of the painting. To look at another painting, go back to the main screen.