John S. Copley Paints Nathaniel Hurd

Two days ago Boston 1775 featured John Singleton Copley's portrait of Boston merchant Nicholas Boylston in his cap, banyan, and shaved head. By dressing so casually and resting his arm on books, Boylston showed the world that he was so wealthy and genteel that he could retire from business and devote himself to intellectual pursuits. (Not that I recall any particularly intellectual productions from him, but that's another story.)

Copley painted the silversmith Nathaniel Hurd in much the same style of dress—or undress. That portrait, shown here, is now at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Unlike Boylston, Hurd was a craftsman—albeit a luxury craftsman who worked in gold and silver for an elite clientele. Hurd also engraved book plates and illustrations, which provided a concrete link between him and the volumes pictured on his table. Nevertheless, I sense that Copley struggled over whether it was appropriate to paint a mechanic like Hurd in the same style as a gentleman like Boylston.

There is a similar, unfinished painting of Hurd at Rochester University's Memorial Art Gallery. It also shows the silversmith with a cap over his shaved head, but he has one sleeve rolled up to show his working-man's biceps—not a detail that appears in any other Copley portrait. And Hurd doesn't look happy about the portrayal. He's clearly more satisfied in/with the picture above.

I think Copley's depictions of Hurd map out a middle ground between his images of the Boylston brothers and other wealthy merchants and his now more famous painting of Paul Revere. Copley portrayed Revere as a working silversmith, a silver teapot in his hand and his engraving tools on the table before him. This is a very rare formal portrait of an eighteenth-century craftsman at work, by any artist, and it differs in several respects from Copley's other paintings. Revere wears either his own brown hair or a wig that looks like his natural hair instead of a white wig. He wears an open collar, showing a bit of chest; as far as I can tell, all the merchants and gentlemen Copley painted have their shirts buttoned up tight and cloths around their necks.

And what do you know? Nathaniel Hurd's collar is open, too—more like Revere than like Boylston. I suspect that might symbolize how Hurd wasn't quite as high-class as his cap and banyan might imply.