Historical
JOHN SINGLETON COPLEY (1738–1815)
Charles I Demanding in the House of Commons the Five Impeached Members, about 1782–94
Oil on canvas, en grisaille, 21 1/2 x 26 1/2 in.
RECORDED: Augustus T. Perkins, A Sketch of the Life and a List of Some of the Works of John Singleton Copley (1873), p. 132 // Frank W. Bayley, The Life and Works of John Singleton Copley (1915), pp. 35 36, 76 // Jules David Prown, John Singleton Copley: In England, 1774–1815 (1966), vol. II, pp. 343–50, 402, 436–47
EXHIBITED: Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, 1982, American Art from the Colonial and Federal Periods, pp. 34 illus., 35 no. 24 // Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, 1998, The American Vasari: William Dunlap and his World, p. 13 no. 13 illus. in color
EX COLL.: the artist; to Lord Lyndhurst; to sale, Christie's, London, England, March 5, 1864, Catalogue of the Very Valuable Collection of Pictures of the Rt. Hon. Lord Lyndhurst, Deceased, no. 72; to _____ Rutley; Rt. Hon. Viscount Ullswater, London, England; sale, Sotheby's, London, England, April 23, 1941, W. H. Jervis Wegg Sale, no. 152; to _____ Waters; Lord Aberdare; to sale, Christie's, London, England, Aug. 1, 1952, Aberdare Collection, no. 23; to _____ Stewart; [Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York]; to private collection, until 1997; to [Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York]; to private collection, until the present
This work is a preliminary compositional sketch for the painting Charles I Demanding in the House of Commons the Five Impeached Members (City of Boston, on loan to the Boston Public Library). The large historical work was originally commissioned by John Boydell in 1781 for the Boydell Gallery of English Paintings; this subject was chosen from ten possible themes relating to the struggle between Charles I and Parliament which ultimately led to civil war. It depicts the moment on January 4, 1641/2, when Charles I appeared in the House of Commons demanding the persons of five members accused of treason. When asked if any were present in the House, Speaker William Lenthall responded: "I have, Sir, neither eyes to see, nor tongue to speak, in this place, but as the house is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here."
Shortly after Copley began work on the painting, it was decided that a modern subject would be more suitable for the gallery, and it was The Death of Major Pierson (1784; Tate London) which ultimately fulfilled Boydell's commission. Copley did not return to work on Charles I until 1785, and spent ten years researching the figures involved. The painting was not publicly exhibited until May 1795.
As was the practice for most of his larger and complex historical compositions, Copley executed this study en grisaille, a practice he undoubtedly adopted from Rubens and other painters of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Compositionally, this sketch differs in several ways from both the finished painting and another study in the collection of the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, both of which include more figures, architectural elements, and facial details.