Body Politics: Copely’s Portraits as Political Effigies during the American Revolution
Description:
New Perspectives on Portraiture: “Body Politics: Copely’s Portraits as Political Effigies during the American Revolution” by Lauren Lessing, Nina Roth-Wells, and Terri Sabatos From the Edgar P. Richardson Symposium: New Perspectives on Portraiture at the National Portrait Gallery, Sept. 20, and Sept. 21, 2018 Day 1, Session 1: Materiality and the Profession of Portraiture Lauren Lessing Director, University of Iowa Stanly Museum of Art Nina Roth-Wells Painting Conservator Terri Sabatos Associate Professor of Art History, Longwood University “Body Politics: Copely’s Portraits as Political Effigies during the American Revolution” In this first lecture of the symposium, Doctors Lessing and Sabatos team up with conservator Roth-Wells to investigate the materiality of John Singleton Copely’s paintings through transformative acts of iconoclasm, or the abuse or destruction of an effigy. Focusing largely on the portraits of Massachusetts loyalists damaged by revolutionaries, the trio examines the significance of the damages done to each painting, as well as that of the repairs to the portraits in later years.
