Drawing from Chopines in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. The tallest chopine had a sole about nine inches thick.
These clogs are of silk brocade, and were made to match brocade slippers. The one with pointed toe would fit the brocaded shoes of the year 1760. The other has with it a high-heeled, black satin slipper of the year 1780, to show how they were worn. They forced a curious shuffling step.
About 1780. Owned by Bucks County Historical Society.
This group, consisting of the artist, John Singleton Copley, his wife, who was formerly a young widow, Susannah Farnham; his wife’s father, Richard Clarke, a most respected Boston merchant who was wealthy until ruined by the War of the Revolution; and the four little Copley children. Elizabeth is between four and five; John Singleton, Jr., is the boy of three, who afterwards became Lord Lyndhurst; Mary is aged two, and an infant is in the grandfather’s arms. Copley was born in 1737, and must have been about thirty-seven when this was painted in 1775. It is deemed by many his masterpiece. The portrait is owned by Mr. Amory, but is now in the custody of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. It is most pronounced, almost startling, in color, every tint being absolutely frank.