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National Gallery of Art - THE COLLECTION
image of Watson and the Shark
John Singleton Copley (painter)
American, 1738 - 1815
Watson and the Shark, 1778
oil on canvas
Overall: 182.1 x 229.7 cm (71 11/16 x 90 7/16 in.) framed: 241.3 x 264.2 x 10.1 cm (95 x 104 x 4 in.)
Ferdinand Lammot Belin Fund
1963.6.1
From the Tour: John Singleton Copley
Object 8 of 12
Perkins, Augustus Thorndike. Supplementary List of Paintings by John Singleton Copley. Boston, n.d.: 9.
1778Royal Academy, Exh. cat. London, 1778: no. 65.
1778The General Evening Post, 28-30 April 1778.
1778The Public Advertiser, 28 April 1778.
1778"A Young Painter," [Letter to the Editor.] The General Advertiser, and Morning Intelligencer, 19 May 1778.
1778The General Advertiser, and Morning Intelligencer, 27 April 1778.
1778The Morning Chronicle, and London Advertiser, 25 April 1778.
1778The Morning Post, and Daily Advertiser (London), 25 April 1778.
1778The St. James's Chronicle; or, British Evening-Post, 25-30 April 1778.
1796Pasquin, Anthony. Memoirs of the Royal Academicians. London, 1796: 136-137.
1824Neal, John. [Essay on Amer. Art] Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine 16 (August 1824). Reprinted in Observations on Amer. Art, Selections ... Writings of John Neal (1793- 1876). H. Dickson, ed. State College, PA., 1943: 26-27.
1829Knapp, Samuel L. Lectures on American Literature, with Remarks on some Passages of American History. New York, 1829: 191.
1830Lieber, Francis, ed. Encyclopaedia Americana, 13 vols. Philadelphia, 1829-1833: 3 (1830): 520.
1832Cunningham, Allan. The Lives of the Most Eminent British Painters, Sculptors, and Architects. London, 1829-1833: 5 (1832):177-178.
1834Dunlap, William. A History of the Rise and Progress of The Arts of Design in the United States. 2 vols. Reprinted in 3. New York, 1969: 1:106, 116-118, 120, 127.
1834Trollope, William. A History of the Royal Foundation of Christ's Hospital. London, 1834: 353.
1841Everett, Edward. "Curiousity Baffled." The Boston Book. Boston, 1841: 228-248.
1847Tuckerman, Henry T. Artist-Life: or Sketches of American Painters. New York and Philadelphia, 1847: 25-26.
1857Art Treasures of the United Kingdom collected at Manchester in 1857. Exh. cat. Manchester, 1857: 82, no number.
1867Tuckerman, Henry T. Book of the Artists: American Artist Life. New York and London, 1867: 78-79.
1873Perkins, Augustus Thorndike. A Sketch of the Life and a List of Some of the Works of John Singleton Copley. Boston, 1873: 20-21, 128.
1882Amory, Martha Babcock. The Domestic and Artistic Life of John Singleton Copley, R.A.. Boston, 1882: 70-75.
1905Graves, Algernon. The Royal Academy of Arts: A Complete Dictionary of Contributors and their Work from its Foundation in 1769 to 1904. 8 vols. London, 1905-1906: 2:159.
1905Isham, Samuel. The History of American Painting. New York, 1905: 26, 38.
1913Graves, Algernon. A Century of Loan Exhibitions, 1813-1912. vols. London, 1913: 1:206.
1915Bayley, Frank W. The Life and Works of John Singleton Copley. Boston, 1915: 253-254.
1924Webster, J. Clarence. Sir Brook Watson, Friend of the Loyalists. Sackville, New Brunswick, 1924.
1937Allan, George A. T. Christ's Hospital. London and Glasgow, 1937: 67-68.
1938Cunningham, Charles C. "Introduction." John Singleton Copley, 1738-1815; Loan Exhibition of Paintings, Pastels, Miniatures and Drawings Exh. cat. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1938: 12-13.
1938Wind, Edgar. "The Revolution in History Painting." Journal of the Warburg Institute 2 (1938/1939): 119.
1943Mayor, A. Hyatt. "Early American Painters in England." Proceedings of the American Philosphical Society 87, no. 1 (July 1943): 107.
1943Soby, James Thrall and Dorothy C. Miller. Romantic Painting in America. Exh. cat. Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1943: 9.
1946American Painting from the Eighteenth Century to the Present Day. Exh. cat. Tate Gallery, London, 1946: no. 49.
1947Richardson, Edgar P. "Watson and the Shark by John Singleton Copley." ArtQ 10, no. 3 (Summer 1947): 213-218, fig. 3.
1951The First Hundred Years of the Royal Academy, 1796-1868. Exh. cat. The Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1951-1952: no. 420.
1953The Christ's Hospital Book. London, 1953: repro. opp. 280.
1953Waterhouse, Ellis. Painting in Britain, 1530 to 1790. Baltimore, Maryland, 1953: 160, 203, pl. 172.
1956Richardson, Edgar P. Painting in America. New York, 1956: 94, 316.
1965John Singleton Copley, Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1965-1966: no. 68a.
1966Prown, Jules David. John Singleton Copley. 2 vols. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1966: 2: 267-274, 298, 387, 459-461, fig. 371.
1966Cairns, Huntington and John Walker, eds., A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 2:396, color repro.
1968Royal Academy of Arts Bicentenary Exhibition, 1768-1968. Exh. cat. Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1968-1969: no. 505.
1970American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 46, repro.
1974Gerdts, William H. The Great American Nude. New York, 1974: detail repro. 33, 38.
1975Paulson, Ronald. Emblem and Expression; Meaning in English Art of the Eighteenth Century. London, 1975: 202-203 repro.
1975Stein, Roger B. Seascape and the American Imagination. New York, 1975: 18, 20, 112, color repro. opp. 32, pl. 1.
1975Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1975: 392, color repro. 393.
1976Stein, Roger B. "Copley's Watson and the Shark and Aesthetics in the 1770s." In Calvin Israel, ed., Discoveries and Considerations. Essays on Early Amer. ... Presented to Harold Jantz. Albany, 1976: 85-130, repro. 88.
1977Jaffe, Irma B. "John Singleton Copley's Watson and the Shark." American Art Journal 9, no. 1 (May 1977): 15-25, repro.
1978King, Marian. Adventures in Art: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1978: 74-75, pl. 44.
1979Abrams, Ann Uhry. "Politics, Prints and John Singleton Copley's Watson and the Shark." ArtB 61, no. 2 (June 1979): 265-276.
1979Watson, Ross. National Gallery of Art. London, 1979: 95, pl. 83, color repro.
1980Kemp, Martin. [Letter to the Editor]. ArtB 62, no. 4 (December 1980): 647.
1980Wilmerding, John. American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 10, 13, no. 5, color repro.
1980American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 139, repro.
1980Wilmerding 1980, 48, color repro. 49.
1981Williams 1981, 30-31, repro. 32-33, color repro. 46.
1984Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. (rev. ed.) New York, 1984: 388, no. 552, color repro.
1986Reader's Digest Services. Sharks: Silent Hunters of the Deep. Sydney and New York, 1986: 132-135.
1987Wilmerding, John. American Marine Painting. 2nd ed. New York, 1987: 33-35, color repro. 32.
1988Bilder aus der Neuen Welt, Amerikanische Malerei des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts, Exh. cat. Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Nationalgalerie, Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin; Kunsthaus, Zürich, 1988-1989: no. 7.
1988Wilmerding 1988 Am Mastepiece, 56, no. 5, color repro.
1989Boime, Albert. "Blacks in Shark-Infested Waters; Visual Encodings of Racism in Copley and Homer." Smithsonian Studies in American Art (Winter 1989): 18-47, color repro. fig. 1.
1989Honour, Hugh. The Image of the Black in Western Art. Vol. 4. From the American Revolution to World War I, Part I: Slaves and Liberators. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1989: 37-41, figs. 6-7.
1990Facing History; The Black Image in American Art, 1710-1940. Exh. cat. The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; The Brooklyn Museum, New York, 1990: unnumbered.
1990Boime, Albert. The Art of Exclusion; Representing Blacks in the Nineteenth Century. Washington, 1990: 20-36, color repro. after xvi.
1992Busch, Werner. "Copley, West, and the Tradition of European High Art." In American Icons; Transatlantic Perspectives on Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century American Art. Edited by Thomas W. Gaehtgens and Heinz Ickstadt. Santa Monica, CA, 1992: 34-59.
1992Gaehtgens, Thomas W. and Heinz Ickstadt, eds. American Icons, Transatlantic Perspectives on Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century American Art. Santa Monica, 1992: 35-59, repro.
1992American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 150, repro.
1992National Gallery of Art, Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 211, repro.
1993Miles, Ellen G. "Copley's Watson and the Shark." Antiques 143, no. 1 (January 1993): 162-171, repro.
1995John Singleton Copley in England. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1995-1996: no. 4.
1995Stokstad, Marilyn. Art History. New York, 1995: 946, no. 26-23, repro. (Rev. ed. 1999: 949, Fig. 26-24, repro.)
1995Miles, Ellen G. American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1995: 54-71, color repro. 57.

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