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Commonwealth Museum   Secretary of the Commonwealth William Francis Galvin

Copley's Portrait

A portrait of Paul Revere holding a tea pot that he created.
Paul Revere. (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)

This iconic portrait of Revere was painted by John Singleton Copley, a famous American painter who made portraits of several other revolutionaries like John Hancock and Samuel Adams. Historian Jane Kamensky has noted that the silver teapot in Revere’s hand and his pose portray him as “at once thinker and maker,” which, given his diverse contributions to revolutionary Massachusetts, is an apt description.


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