spent some time face to face with history today

[Madadh]

The picture on the book is different than the painting. Look at the sword, they are pointing in different directions. I too think that the pin is actually the bottom of the dirk. Just my 2 pence.

[Connaughton]

John Singleton Copley is the artist. Anyway the backgrounds are different. And I believe that the piece in Scotland is much smaller, so maybe a study for the version is LA? Or Maybe it goes the other way around. Many of you may be more familiar with JSC's portrait of Paul Revere. But we've all seen his work before.
I've no opinion on the pin or dirk puzzle.

Great piece of art thanks for sharing it with us.

Connaughton

[OC Richard]

The picture on the book is different than the painting. Look at the sword, they are pointing in different directions. I too think that the pin is actually the bottom of the dirk. Just my 2 pence.

Yes the inferior artist who did the copy changed the sword-arm, and made several small changes in the background.

It's my understanding that a member of the aristocracy would commission a top portrait painter, then commission a 2nd artist, an artist who specialised in copying, to create one or more copies, so that they could have paintings to hang in their various residences. In other words the copy might well be nearly contemporaneous with the original, might have been painted in the subject's own lifetime.

Curious to me that the unsigned undated copy by an unknown artist is owned by the National Museums Scotland and appears in countless books about Highland Dress, while the signed dated original hangs in relative obscurity in Los Angeles.