"...as I have of late entr'd into connections that may probably keep me longer in London than I coud wish, I am very desirous of seeing the good Lady's Face as she now appears with old age creeping upon her. I shoud chuse her painted on a small half length or a size broader than Kitt Katt, sitting in as natual a posture as possible. I leave the pictoresque disposition intirely to your self and I shall only observe that gravity is my choice of Dress."
 

This is an excerpt from a letter by artist and art dealer John Greenwood to John Singleton Copley, commissioning him to paint a portrait of his mother, Mrs Humphery Devereux (1710-1794, formerly Mary Prince Greenwood, née Charnock). Sittings were arranged, and in 1771 Copley wrote to Greenwood telling him the portrait was completed and was being shipped to England.

John Greenwood's critical approval of the completed work is indicated by the fact that he had the painting exhibited at the Royal Academy in London that same year. This appears to be the only record of the painting being publicly displayed by the Greenwood family for several generations. When a descendant, Dr John Danforth Greenwood, together with his wife, Sarah Greenwood, and their seven children emigrated to Motueka, New Zealand, in 1843, among the family possessions to be shipped was this portrait.

More than 100 years were to pass before anyone outside the immediate family remarked on the significance of a Copley work so far away from Boston and the world familiar to the painter.

Mr Sheldon Keck examining the Copley portrait before restoration. With him are Mr Paul Gabites, then New Zealand Consul General in New York, Mr Albert T. E Gardiner, Associate Curator of American Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Mr Lloyd Goodrich, Director of the Whitney Museum.
Mr Sheldon Keck examining the Copley portrait before restoration. With him are Mr Paul Gabites, then New Zealand Consul General in New York, Mr Albert T. E Gardiner, Associate Curator of American Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Mr Lloyd Goodrich, Director of the Whitney Museum.

In 1952, another Boston portraitist, Charles Hopkinson (1869-1962), was in New Zealand visiting his daughter. During his stay, he was invited to paint a portrait of Miss Elizabeth Greenwood. It was in her home in Eastbourne that Hopkinson saw and recognised the portrait of Mrs Devereux as being a work by Copley. Upon the death of Elizabeth Greenwood in 1961 (aged eighty-nine years old), her family agreed to present the painting to the National Art Gallery on permanent loan.

By this time the condition of the painting necessitated extensive restoration. Both the United States Ambassador to New Zealand and the United States Information Agency in Wellington offered assistance to completely restore the painting in the United States, without charge, as a gesture of goodwill.

In April 1964, the painting was sent to the Conservation Centre of the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, where it underwent three months' full-time work by one of the world's most experienced and highly-respected conservators, Sheldon Keck.

It was then agreed that the painting should remain in the United States for eighteen months for exhibition. It was seen in the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, and in major art museums in Boston, Toledo, Detroit and Cleveland.

The committee for conservation formed to review the proposed conservation treatment of the painting are shown here with Sheldon Keck. Left to right: Albert T.E Gardiner, Sheldon Keck, Lois Bingham, Chief of the Fine Arts Section of the Exhibits Division, United States Information Agency, O. P Gabites and Lloyd Goodrich.

The committee for conservation formed to review the proposed conservation treatment of the painting are shown here with Sheldon Keck.

Left to right: Albert T.E Gardiner, Sheldon Keck, Lois Bingham, Chief of the Fine Arts Section of the Exhibits Division, United States Information Agency, O. P Gabites and Lloyd Goodrich.

The painting was then returned to New Zealand. On 29 March 1965, the Director of the National Art Gallery, S B McLennan, wrote to Mr Keck:

When it came out of its case, we, the staff of the Gallery, just stood in awed silence, in admiration of your wonderful transformation of the painting. The lady seemed to be breathing, still the 18th century air, but fresh pure air with all the murk and dinginess completely gone!

In the same year, the painting was gifted by the Greenwood family to the National Art Gallery. In 1984, the painting was on loan for five years to the Museum of American Art in Washington DC, and once again in 1995 to the Metropolitan Museum in New York for their Copley retrospective, 'John Singleton Copley in America'.

This is your opportunity to see a fine example of Early American portraiture that has not been on public view in New Zealand for eighteen years.

Images taken of the during the 1965 restoration of Mrs Humphrey Devereux (black and white only. May take some time to download).