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

Sarah Tyler Savage (Mrs. Samuel Phillips Savage),1 about 1763–64
Oil on canvas
49 3/4 x 39 3/4 inches (126.4 x 101 cm)
Museum purchase, 1916.51
Provenance:
The sitter Sarah Tyler Savage (1717/18–1764), Boston, and her husband Samuel Phillips Savage (1718–1797), Boston and later Weston, Massachusetts; to his third wife and widow, Mary Meserve Savage (d. 1810); to the sitter’s daughter Lucy Savage Bigelow (1761–1834), Weston, Massachusetts, later Biddeford and Saco, Maine; to her nephew Col. George Thacher, Jr. (1790–1857), Monroe, Maine; purchased by his first cousin Charles Tyler Savage (1797–1879), Harvard, Massachusetts; to his son William H. Savage (b. 1831); sold by him in 1891, through Williams and Everett, Boston, to his cousin Samuel Savage Shaw (1833–1915), Boston; bequeathed by him to his cousin Henry Savage (1864–1948), Camden, South Carolina. Purchased by the Worcester Art Museum from Frank W. Bayley, Boston, 1916.2

References
Perkins 1873, 100–01, 131.

Centennial 1876, 54.

BMFA Annual Report, 1877, 16.

Bayley 1910, 92.

Park 1914, opp. 24, 25.

Bayley 1915, 219.

Hackett 1916, 1–2, 4.

"Purchases in 1916–1917," Worcester Annual Report, 1917, 15.

Worcester 1922, 171.

Bayley 1929, 267.

Lee 1929, 76.

Bolton and Binsse 1930b, 118.

"Portraits by Copley," Worcester News Bulletin, 3, no. 5 (February 1938), n.p.

Parker and Wheeler 1938, 177–78 and pl. 46.

American Portraits 1939, 361.

Roberts 1953, 20.

Dresser 1961, [32], 33, [35], 38.

"Two Copley Portraits," Worcester News Bulletin, 28, no. 6 (March 1963), n.p.

Prown 1966, I, 40–41, 54 n. 3, 113, 118, 124, 186, 187, 228, and fig. 142 (n.p.)

Brockton Art Center 1969, n. p.

Reutlinger 1975, 22, 23–24.

Teitz 1979, 30–31.

Saunders and Miles 1987, 65.

Rebora 1995, 144, 145, 158 n. 9.

Exhibitions
United States International Exposition (Centennial Exhibition), Memorial Hall, Philadelphia, 1876, cat. no. 14b.

On loan to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1877.

Re-Opening of the American Wing, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, approximately October 16–December 31, 1962.

Three Centuries of New England Art from New England Museums, The New Brockton Art Center, Fuller Memorial, Brockton, Massachusetts, January 15–March 2, 1969, cat. fig. 10, exhibited with Copley’s original receipt for the painting.

The Colonial Epoch in America, Worcester Art Museum, April 18, 1975–January 4, 1976, cat. pp. 22 and 23–24.

American Art from the Collection of the Worcester Art Museum, Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, April 27–June 24, 1979, cat. pp. 30–31.

Notes
1. This painting has also been published as Mrs. Samuel Phillips Savage (Lee 1929, 76); Mrs. Samuel Phillips Savage (Sarah Tyler) (Teitz 1979, 30); Mrs. Samuel Savage (Sarah Tyler) (Bayley 1929, 267); Mrs. Sarah Savage (Bayley 1910, 92); and Portrait of Mrs. Samuel Phillips Savage (Hackett 1916, 1).

2. The provenance is supplied in Lawrence Park, a descendant of the Savages, to Lincoln N. Kinnicutt, May 18, 1916. The will of Mary Savage, January 19, 1808, names Lucy Bigelow her the sole heir of her estate, Middlesex County Probate record 19921. See also, William H. Emery, "Portrait of Sarah Savage," September 19, 1891, ms.; and Frank W. Bayley to the Worcester Art Museum May 8, 1916. All documents are in the object file, Worcester Art Museum.