{
"data": {
"id": 127537,
"accession_number": "1950.216",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "A Hussar Officer on Horseback, 1812. John Singleton Copley (American, born The Thirteen Colonies, 1738\u20131815). Black and white chalk; sheet: 27.6 x 22.1 cm (10 7/8 x 8 11/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Norman O. Stone and Ella A. Stone Memorial Fund, 1950.216",
"current_location": null,
"title": "A Hussar Officer on Horseback",
"creation_date": "1812",
"creation_date_earliest": 1812,
"creation_date_latest": 1812,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"America"
],
"technique": "black and white chalk",
"support_materials": [
{
"description": "blue wove paper (faded)",
"watermarks": []
}
],
"department": "Drawings",
"collection": "DR - American 18th Century",
"type": "Drawing",
"measurements": "Sheet: 27.6 x 22.1 cm (10 7/8 x 8 11/16 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"sheet": {
"height": 0.276,
"height_inch": 10,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.875,
"width": 0.221,
"width_inch": 8,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.6875
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "verso, lower left, in black chalk: Prince of Wales",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 301184,
"title": "Department of Prints and Drawings Opening Exhibition",
"description": "Department of Prints and Drawings Opening Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (March 3, 1958-October 11, 1959).",
"opening_date": "1958-03-03T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 361392,
"title": "Romantic Art in Britain: Paintings and Drawings 1760-1860",
"description": "Romantic Art in Britain: Paintings and Drawings 1760-1860. The Detroit Institute of Arts (organizer) (January 9-February 11, 1968); Philadelphia Museum of Art (March 14-April 21, 1968).",
"opening_date": "1968-01-09T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 309655,
"title": "National Schools of Style",
"description": "National Schools of Style. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 14-September 18, 1983).",
"opening_date": "1983-06-14T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 309860,
"title": "America Draws",
"description": "America Draws. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 28, 1984-March 17, 1985).",
"opening_date": "1984-12-28T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 191183,
"title": "American Drawings from the Permanent Collection",
"description": "American Drawings from the Permanent Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 19-July 12, 1998).",
"opening_date": "1998-04-19T00:00:00"
},
{
"id": 192019,
"title": "Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art",
"description": "Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000); The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY (May 23-August 19, 2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (October 14, 2001-January 6, 2002).",
"opening_date": "2000-08-27T00:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "Exhibition of Drawings by John Singleton Copley. Harry Shaw Newman Gallery. New York, NY. (1947) 108, no. 9.",
"opening_date": "1947-01-01T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "The artist [1738-1815], London, England.",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1812-?",
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "John Singleton Copley, Jr., 1st Baron Lyndhurst (the artist\u2019s son) [1772-1863], London, England.",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "?-1863",
"sortorder": 2
},
{
"description": "(The Lyndhurst Library Sale, Christie\u2019s, London, 2/26/1864-2/27/1864, lot 670, likely sold to Edward Basil Jupp.)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "1864",
"sortorder": 3
},
{
"description": "Edward Basil Jupp [1812-1877], London.",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "1864-?",
"sortorder": 4
},
{
"description": "Passed down through the Amory family: Martha Babcock Amory (granddaughter of the artist) [1812-1880], Boston, MA; Edward Linzee Amory (great-grandson of the artist) [1844-1911], Boston, MA; Mr. Wallace (valet to Edward Linzee Amory), Foxborough, MA. Sold to Charles D. Childs Gallery.",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "?-probably 1950",
"sortorder": 5
},
{
"description": "(Charles D. Childs Gallery, Boston, MA, sold to The Cleveland Museum of Art.)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "1950",
"sortorder": 6
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH.",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "1950-",
"sortorder": 7
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "The soldier wears a heavy military headdress called a \u201cbusby,\u201d originally worn by Hungarian hussars and adopted by American hussar (light cavalry) regiments during the 1800s.",
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "John Singleton Copley left Boston at the start of the American Revolution in 1775 to pursue his career in England, where he achieved distinction both as a portraitist and a history painter. Following a method often employed in France, Copley generally drew on blue paper to serve as a middle tone, working up the image using black chalk to indicate outlines and shadows, and white chalk for highlights. He made this drawing as an early study for the figure of the prince of Orange in his last major history painting, Battle of the Pyrenees (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), in 1812\u201315. The figure is garbed in the uniform of a \u201chussar,\u201d a light cavalry officer equipped with a saber, regiments of which played an important role in the Napoleonic Wars (1803\u201315). In the final composition, Copley used the pose not for Orange, but for the Duke of Wellington, changing the facial features and adjusting the position of the figure\u2019s arms.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q79907586"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1950.216-a-hussar-officer-on"
]
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": null,
"page_number": null,
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Amory, Martha Babcock. The Domestic and Artistic Life of John Singleton Copley, RA. Boston, MA: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1882.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: pp. 270-71",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Comstock, Helen. \u201cExhibition of Drawings by Copley.\u201d Panorama by Harry Shaw Newman Gallery 2, no. 9 (May 2, 1947): 100-108.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 108",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Prown, Jules David. John Singleton Copley, In England 1774-1815. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: pp. xxi, 281-83, 436, no. 674",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Cummings, Frederick J., and Allen Staley. Romantic Art in Britain; Paintings and Drawings, 1760-1860. Nashville, TN: Falcon Press, 1968.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 98, no. 48",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 184",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1969/page/n208"
},
{
"citation": "The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 198",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1978/page/n218"
},
{
"citation": "The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1991. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1991.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p.122",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art, Diane DeGrazia, and Carter E. Foster. Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art in association with Rizzoli International Publications, New York, 2000.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: cat. no. 83,,p. 8, pp. 202-203, p. 295; Reproduced: p. 203",
"url": null
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1950.216",
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"creditline": "Norman O. Stone and Ella A. Stone Memorial Fund",
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"id": 2409,
"description": "John Singleton Copley (American, born The Thirteen Colonies, 1738\u20131815)",
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"updated_at": "2026-07-21 11:12:34.757000"
}
}