Portrait of Elizabeth Deering Wentworth Gould Rogers (Mrs. Nathaniel Rogers)

John Singleton Copley had already earned a reputation as Boston’s leading artist when he painted this portrait of Elizabeth Rogers, probably commissioned on the occasion of her second marriage. The portrait reveals Copley’s mastery of European traditions, but his work is distinguished from that of his predecessors by his ability to convey the personalities of his sitters in a highly realistic yet still artful manner. Here Copley indicates Mrs. Rogers’s modesty and gentility through her averted gaze, aristocratic bearing, and fashionable dress.