AFA 18th Anniversary

Also named John Hancock, he was married to Dorothy Hancock Scott’s stepdaughter. (Dorothy married Capt. James Scott after John died in 1793.) He bequeathed “a minia- ture of Gov. Hancock” to his son Washington and “the miniatures of my cousins John George Washington Hancock and Lydia Hancock” to his son Franklin. Subsequently, the miniatures appear in an inventory written in 1917 by his granddaughter, Elizabeth Lowell Hancock (Moriarty) Wood in which she noted who was to inherit various items. She designated a “Gold locket, with minia- tures of Gov. Hancock’s two children” and a “Broach [ sic ],” with a portrait of Gov. John Hancock, as being reserved “for Mary.” This was Mary Wood Cole, her daughter. The black and white photos were also listed in the inventory. 9 While the Peale miniature of Dorothy Hancock is still unlocated, and there is no known image of it, John Singleton Copley painted a portrait of her about 1772. Only four years earlier than Peale’s miniatures of Dorothy and her husband, it seems plausible that her likeness in the missing miniature was very similar to the young woman seated at the table in Copley’s portrait (Fig. 6). 10 There is, however, one miniature of Dorothy by an unknown artist that is recorded in a photograph. It is not contemporary with her husband’s miniature, but instead depicts Dorothy in her advanced age (Fig. 7); the location is presently unknown. Fortuitously, further research discovered a lithograph of this portrait in the MHS collection. The inscription in the plate, “Mrs D. Scott Miss Goodrich pinx.,” allows us to identify the artist as either Sarah Goodrich/Goodridge (1788–1853), the well-known Boston miniaturist, or her sister Eliza Goodrich/Goodridge (1798–1882). The lithograph was drawn by Thomas Edwards (1795–1869) and was published by the Senefelder Lithographic Company of Boston. Now that the identity of the sitters in the miniatures have been clarified, let’s look into their history. After John Hancock and Dorothy Quincy were married in August 1775 the couple set up house in Philadelphia, where John served as president of the Second Continental Congress. Charles Willson Peale also came to Philadelphia, to open a studio as a portrait painter. 11 Peale recorded in his diary that in January 1776, John Hancock, one of his first customers, commissioned miniatures of himself (fig. 1) and 18th Anniversary 150 www.afamag.com | w ww.incollect.com Fig. 6: John Singleton Copley (1738–1815), Dorothy Quincy (Mrs. John Hancock), about 1772. Oil on canvas, 50⅛ x 39⅝ inches. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1975.13); Charles H. Bayley Picture and Painting Fund and Gift of Mrs. Anne B. Loring. Wood. She was Mary Wood Cole’s sister-in-law. E.L.H. Wood is identified as Elizabeth Lowell Hancock (Moriarty) Wood, great- granddaughter of Ebenezer Hancock (1741–1819), John Hancock’s brother. Mary Wood Cole was her daughter. Morton Cole was Mary’s son. The miniatures were passed down through the family until sold to Widmer in 1932. The note did not mention the John Hancock miniature, even though it had been on Widmer’s invoice. Fortunately, as evidence that it had descended in the Hancock family, there is “a photograph of John Hancock” in the MHS collection, also donated by Thomas Wood. The item, a daguerreotype in a leather case and described as a painting of John Hancock, turned out to be the reverse image of the miniature at the RISD Museum. 8 Further validation of the provenance of the three miniatures was found in the will of John Hancock’s nephew, dated April 1, 1857.