The Death of the Earl of Chatham The Death of the Earl of Chatham The Death of the Earl of Chatham is the title of a 1781 oil-on-canvas painting by Boston-born American artist John Singleton Copley. It depicts the collapse of William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham on 7 April 1778, during a debate in the House of Lords on the American War of Independence. Chatham is surrounded by peers of the realm, and the painting contains fifty-five portraits. Lord Chatham was the architect of the British victory in the Seven Years' War (1757–1763), in which Britain won supremacy in America. Although sympathetic to American grievances and
The Death of the Earl of Chatham of the Spanish Armada made by Hendrick Cornelisz Vroom. Chatham's imperial vision of the British Empire resting on commercial expansion via the sea and his collapsing beneath the depiction of England's greatest naval victory are connected and symbolic. Copley also shows Lord Mansfield, one of Chatham's enemies, seated in indifference. Copley rented out a private room to exhibit the painting, charging for admission. He also made money from the painting from prints of it, marketed by John Boydell. The Death of the Earl of Chatham The Death of the Earl of Chatham is the title of a 1781 oil-on-canvas painting