Copley's Cargo.

The article examines John Singleton Copley's Henry Pelham, Boy With a Squirrel, in transit and its role in the development of eighteenth-century art and material culture in the U.S. Many discussions of the painting have used its largely positive reception overseas to establish and legitimate the protonationalist roots of a homegrown American empiricism. As befits its singular status, the painting diverges significantly in compositional terms from Copley's earlier work.