Technical Notes
The painting’s support is a moderately coarse, plain-weave canvas with an average of nine threads per centimeter in the warp direction and eight threads per centimeter in the weft direction. Damaged areas at lower left appear to be punctures. The original tacking edges of the canvas are no longer extant.

The smooth white ground is moderately thick and does not hide the texture of the canvas. The paint is applied in varying thicknesses with low impasto on the lace.

Copley made considerable adjustments to the proper left arm. A pentimento of the tree trunk extends approximately five centimeters into the left arm, where it stops abruptly at what was probably the original edge of the sleeve. The background paint in the triangular negative space below the left arm overlaps the edge of the sleeve, indicating that Copley continued to make adjustments to this area of the painting.

Some flattening of the impasto is probably the result of past lining treatments. Fading has occurred in the ribbons, which were originally a stronger purple.

There are extensive losses in the upper left background to the immediate left of the sitter’s head. There is a loss in the proper left eye; small scattered losses occur throughout. Abrasion to the paint surface is extensive and is pronounced in the area of the yellow dress. Subtle glazes in the face and chest have also been lost. Retouching to damaged areas is now discolored.

The painting was most recently cleaned in 1978. At that time a glue lining was removed and replaced with a polyester lining adhered with wax-resin adhesive. The present varnish appears uneven and dull.

Frame Notes
The frame consists of a carved and gilded softwood molding with miter joints and cross splines at each corner. The shallow-carved inner edge is followed by a 1.3-centimeter-wide central band of gilded sandwork. The outer section consists of pierce work and has leaf corner ornaments with flanking c-scrolls, from which vines extend with alternating leaves and flowers. Each side has carved shell ornaments at the center points. Large compo roundels with rosettes in the center of each corner are probably not original to the frame. The back panel has a narrow upper edge with a band of shallow carving.

The frame is similar to the one on Copley’s Theodore Atkinson, Jr. (about 1757–58, Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence), which appears to have been made in England.¹

Notes
1. Heckscher 1995, 149, fig. 129.