127.32 x 100.65 cm (50 1/8 x 39 5/8 in.)
Oil on canvas

Classification: Paintings

Object is currently not on view

Dorothy Quincy, born in Boston in 1747, was the youngest of ten children of Judge Edmund Quincy and Elizabeth Wendell Quincy. Dorothy spent most of her early years in Braintree, Massachusetts, in a lively household, where John and Samuel Adams [see 30.76c], Dr. Joseph Warren [95.1366], James Otis, and John Hancock [30.76d] frequently visited her father, an ardent patriot. It is not known what event prompted the family to commission Copley to paint Dorothy's portrait; it did not coincide with her marriage, for she was not to wed John Hancock for another three years. However, Copley had already depicted several other members of the Quincy family, including Dorothy's uncle Josiah Quincy (about 1767, private collection); her cousin Jonathan Jackson (twice in pastel and once in miniature during the late 1760s, MFA [1987.295], Massachusetts Historical Society, and private collection); another cousin Samuel Quincy (about 1767, MFA [1970.356]); and his wife, Mrs. Samuel Quincy (about 1761, MFA [1970.357]).

Copley fashioned a handsome portrait of the reputedly beautiful and intelligent daughter of one of Massachusetts's leading families. He posed Dorothy with a hand to her face in a thoughtful pose, suggesting introspection and intellect. It was a gesture he used for several of his sitters, both men and women, including "Mrs. Richard Skinner (Dorothy Wendell)," whom he painted in a similar fashion at this same time [06.2428]. Quincy is surrounded by elegant furnishings; she sits at a stylish "spider leg" table, which Copley probably kept in his studio, since it appears in three other portraits - "Mrs. Richard Skinner (Dorothy Wendell)," "Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Winslow" [39.250], and "Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Mifflin" (1773, Historical Society of Pennsylvania). The table was a fashionable and tasteful piece of furniture in 1772, but the easy chair in which Dorothy Quincy sits is somewhat irregular. Art historian Jonathan Prown has observed that the chair "lacks upper cheeks…[and] its nail-decorated ramp arms are rare on colonial American easy chairs" (Jonathan Prown, "John Singleton Copley's Furniture and the Art of Invention," "American Furniture 2004," ed. Luke Beckerdite, Hanover and London: Chipstone Foundation and University Press of New England, 2004, p. 187). Unlike the table, the chair appears to have been more a product of Copley's imagination than an actual studio prop.

Dorothy Quincy's costume is both graceful and stylish. Her hair was probably combed over a roll so that her coiffure was fashionably high, and atop this hairdo she wore a dress cap of lace, gauze, and ribbon, a "frivolous and very feminine confection that serves no practical purpose" according to art historian Aileen Ribeiro ("'The Whole Art of Dress': Costume in the Work of John Singleton Copley," in Rebora, Carrie, et al., "John Singleton Copley in America," New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art and Harry N. Abrams, 1995, p. 110). Dorothy's silk pink robe and matching stomacher are decorated by a large bow, and the sleeves end in triple ruffles, probably of whiteworked muslin rather than lace. Her sheer apron is also of muslin, embroidered with large floral sprays. Although aprons are now associated with working life, in the eighteenth century they were appropriate for all but the most formal occasions as long as they were of expensive fabric (Heather Toomer, "Embroidered with White: The 18th Century Fashion for Dresden Lace and other Whiteworked Accessories," Great Britain: Heather Toomer Antique Lace, 2008, p. 30, 35). The frothy dress cap, brilliant pink dress, and delicate muslin ruffles and apron reflected the wealth of the Quincy family and were suitable adornment for this eligible young woman, known to friends and family as "Dolly."

In 1775, Dorothy Quincy would marry John Hancock, the first signer of the Declaration of Independence and the first and third Governor of Massachusetts. She became well-known as a charming and lively hostess. John Adams wrote of their marriage, "His choice was very natural, a granddaughter of the great patron and most revered friend of his father. Beauty, politeness, and every domestic virtue justified his predilection" (quoted in Harry Clinton Green and Mary Wolcott Green, "The Pioneer Mothers of America," New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1912, p. 29). After John Hancock's death in 1793, she married Colonel James Scott and lived in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. When her second husband died in 1809, she returned to Boston, where she once again was celebrated for her hospitality and sparkling conversation. Dorothy Quincy died in 1830, at the age of 83.

Janet Comey

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Charles H. Bayley Picture and Painting Fund and Gift of Mrs. Ann B. Loring, 1975
Accession number: 1975.13

Provenance/Ownership History: The artist; Theodore Cushing, Little Harbor, N.H.; Harriet A. Cushing, Little Harbor, N. H., by 1873; Mary L. Rose (Mrs. George S. Rose), Boston, by 1890, great-granddaughter of Theodore Cushing; Estate of Mrs. George S. Rose by 1896; to Ann Rose Bowen, 1915, her granddaughter; Ann Rose Bowen became Mrs. Atherton Loring, 1927; to MFA, 1975, partial purchase and gift of Mrs. Ann B. Loring.

This object is included in the following Selected Tour(s):

• American Paintings