me the father of another son, Henry, by this second
marriage. Mr. Pelham was a portrait painter and a mezzotint engraver of
unusual merit. One authority calls him "the founder of those arts in New
England." Mr. Pelham was also a man of education, a land surveyor, and a
mathematician. He was thus well qualified to educate, assist, and
stimulate young Copley in the pursuit of studies so natural and congenial
to him. He is said to have been studious and quiet, and to have made rapid
advances. When he was fifteen years old he painted a portrait of his
step-brother, Charles Pelham, now in the family of a great-grandson, Mr.
Charles Pelham Curtis, of Boston. At sixteen he published an engraving of
Rev. William Welsteed, from a portrait painted by himself. The same year
he painted the portrait of a child--afterward Dr. de Mountfort--now owned
in Detroit. In 1754 he painted an allegorical picture of Mars, Venus, and
Vulcan, thirty inches long by twenty-five wide, now owned in Bridgewater,
Mass. The next year he painted a miniature of George Washington, who was
on a visit to Governor Shirley at the time. This picture now belongs to
the family of the late George P. Putnam, of New York City. In 1756 he
painted a three-quarters length portrait of General William Brattle, life
size, signed and dated, and now owned by Mr. William S. Appleton. He now
improved rapidly. A crayon portrait of Miss Rebecca Gardiner, afterward
Mrs. Philip Dumaresq, an oil painting of Mrs. Edmund Perkins, a portrait
of Rebecca Boylston, afterward wife of Governor Gill, portraits of Colonel
and Mrs. Lee, grandparents of General William Raymond Lee, all exist and
attest the continued growth of his powers. These date between 1763 and
1769. During this time he had access to and was a visitor in houses where
were portraits by Saribest, Blackburn, Liopoldt, and even by Vandyck and
Sir Godfrey Kneller. Mr. Augustus Thorndike Perkins, in his carefully
written monograph on Copley, says that our artist must have seen all these
pictures, since, as Dr. Gardiner says, "his genial disposition and his
courtly manners make him a welcome guest everywhere." Mr. Perkins remarks
that Copley must have studied with Blackburn; that he imitated, but in
some respects surpassed him. "Both frequently used, either as the lining
of a dress or as drapery, a certain shade of mauve pink; Blackburn uses
this shade feebly, while Copley dashes it on with the hand of a master."
On November 16, 17