John Singleton Copley
Born Boston, Mass., July 3, 1738.
Died London, England, September 9, 1815.

John Bours, about 1760–621
Oil on canvas
50 1/4 x 40 1/8 inches (127.6 x 101.9 cm)
Museum purchase from the bequest of Mrs. Hester Newton Wetherell, 1908.7

Provenance
John Bours (1734–1815), Newport, Rhode Island; to his son Luke Bours (1784–1842) who moved to Charleston, South Carolina and died there; Eunice Neufville Bours who married a Mr. Gray; Miss Jenny Gray, Charleston, who sold it in Boston, about 1907–08. Purchased from Frank W. Bayley, Boston.2

References
Worcester Annual Report, 1908, 12, 37.

Bayley 1910, 23.

Loan Exhibition 1913, 7, 8.

L[    ]. 1915, 9, 11.

Bayley 1915, 61.

Bryant 1917, opp. 23, 26–27.

Worcester 1922, 96–97, 170.

Bayley 1929, 177.

Lee 1929, 76.

Worcester 1929, cat. no. 331, n.p.

Bolton and Binsse 1930b, 116.

Worcester 1933, 94.

Metropolitan 1936, cat. no. 36, n.p.

Copley Exhibit 1937, 12, 13.

"Portraits by Copley," Worcester News Bulletin 3: 5 (February 1938), n. p.

Parker and Wheeler 1938, 39 and pl. 26.

BMFA 1938, 20.

American Portraits 1939, I, 42.

Pruett 1962, 14–15.

Prown 1965, 29, 31, 136.

Prown 1966, I, 33–34, 35, 74, fig. 93 (n.p.), 103 , 121, 125, 127, 139, 156, 157, 209.

Richardson 1968, 40.

Dresser 1971, 476, 477.

Worcester 1973, 148.

Reutlinger 1975, 24, 25.

Sherrill 1975, 32.

Teitz 1979, 28–29.

Worcester 1994, 181.

Rebora 1995, 58, 88, 113, 145, 158 n. 11, 264–66.

Barratt 1998, 18, 20.

Exhibitions
Exhibition of American Eighteenth Century Art Owned in and Near Worcester
, Worcester Art Museum, March 10–31, 1929, cat. no. 331.

An Exhibition of Paintings by John Singleton Copley. In Commemoration of the Two-Hundredth Anniversary of His Birth, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, December 22, 1936–February 14 1937, cat. no. 36.

John Singleton Copley, 1738–1815. Loan Exhibition of Paintings, Pastels, Miniatures and Drawings, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, February 1–March 15, 1938, cat. no. 9.

Carolina Charter Tercentenary Exhibition, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, March 23–April 28, 1963, cat. no. 8.

John Singleton Copley, 1738–1815, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., September 18–October 31, 1965; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, November 20, 1965–January 2, 1966; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, January 22–March 6, 1966, cat. no. 15.

The Colonial Epoch in America, Worcester Art Museum, April 18, 1975–January 4, 1976, cat. pp. 24 and 25.

American Art from the Collection of the Worcester Art Museum, Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, April 27–June 24, 1979, cat. pp. 28–29.

John Singleton Copley in America, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, June 7, 1995–August 27, 1995; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, September 19, 1995–January 7, 1996; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, February 4–April 28, 1996, cat. no. 56.

Notes
1. This painting has also been published as Portrait of John Bourse (Bryant, 1917, opp. 23) and Portrait of Mr. John Bours, of Newport (Worcester Annual Report, 12).

2. Mary S. Bours to Louisa Dresser, April 10 and April 30, 1962, provide the family tradition of the descent of this portrait and Blackburn’s portrait of Bours’s wife Hannah Babcock. Bill from Frank W. Bayley, April 1, 1908. All documents are in the object file, Worcester Art Museum.