surmounted by sculpted figures suggests an Italian villa. The arcade bears resemblance to the patterns used in James Gibbs's Rules for Drawing the Several Parts of Architecture.5 However, this feature may more directly derive from the pillar-and-arch wallpaper in Sparhawk's home. Block printed in England, the wall paper hung in the stairhall of Sparhawk Hall (fig. 181) and was probably installed by Sparhawk shortly after Sir William's death.6 PS
1. For a thorough discussion of this picture, see Carol Troyen, "John Sin gleton Copley and the Grand Manner: Colonel Nathaniel Sparhawk," journal of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 1 (1989), pp. 96-103. See also Wayne Craven, Colonial American Portraiture: The Economic, Religious, Social, Cultural, Philosophical, Scientific, and Aesthetic Foundations (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 337-38. 2. See Andrew Wilton, The Swagger Portrait: Grand Manner Portraiture in Britain from Van Dyck to Augustus john, 16]0-1930 (exh. cat., London: Tate Gallery, 1992). 3· Smibert painted Sir William Pepperrell, 1746 (Essex Institute Mu seum, Salem, Massachusetts); Sir Peter Warren, 1746 (Portsmouth Athenaeum, New Hampshire); and William Shirley, 1747 (location un known). Feke painted Brigadier General Samuel Waldo, ca. 1748 (Bow doin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine). See Ellen G. Miles, "Portraits of the Heroes of Louisburg, 1745-1751," American Art journal15 (Winter 1983), pp. 48-66. 4· See John Mead Howells, The Architectural Heritage of the Piscataqua: Houses and Gardens of the Portsmouth District of Maine and New Hampshire (New York, 1937), pp. 6-13,38-41. 5· James Gibbs, Rules for Drawing the Several Parts of Architecture ... (London, 1732), pls. 32, 39· 6. Richard C. Nylander, Elizabeth Redmond, and Penny J. Sander, Wall paper in New England: Selections from the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (Boston, 1986), pp. 48-51.
Fig. 180 John Smibert. Sir William Pepperrell, 1746. Oil on canvas,
96 X 56 in. (243·8 X 142.2 em). Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massa chusetts, Gift of George Atkinson Ward
Sparhawk's grand pose also suggests an inheritance from Sir William, as he was represented by Smibert. But Sparhawk's grace and informality contrast with the stiffness of the Louisburg sitters. Sparhawk's animated pose was consistent with emerging codes of bodily conduct that postulated the ideal gentleman as relaxed and conversational. Copley had used the new body etiquette as early as 1758 in his portrait of Thaddeus Burr (fig. 43). The motif of the plinth on which Sparhawk rests his arm also comes from the por trait of Burr and from the still earlier print of the English architect James Gibbs by Peter Pelham (fig. 168). Like Gibbs, Sparhawk not only leans on a plinth but also holds in his hand an architectural drawing. But the four-columned porch diagrammed in Sparhawk's drawing was never used in the two building projects associated with him, his own house of 1742 and his mother-in-law's of the 176os.4 Copley placed Sparhawk in an imaginary setting. Two colossal columns flank him on the right, and at the rear a classical arcade Fig. 181 Stairhall, Sparhawk Hall, Kittery Point, Maine