As Copley matured as an artist he became even more compositionally inventive. A great example of this is an early masterpiece, Boy with a Squirrel, a portrait of the artist’s half-brother, Henry Pelham. While it is, of course, a portrait, it would be more accurate to consider this painting as a tangible demonstration of the artist’s skill. Indeed, from the beginning, Copley intended this painting not for a wall in a Boston parlor, but instead for the wall of a London exhibition space. It is, as such, as much about what Copley could do as an artist as it is about the likeness of Henry Pelham. And yet, what a portrait! Copley has painted Pelham in profile—something exceedingly rare in his pre-London oeuvre. He looks to left side of the composition as if dreamily lost in thought. The first thing a viewer might notice is that Copley has beautifully framed his half-brother’s face in front of a vibrant red curtain. Pelham wears a dark frock coat that is embellished with a pink satin collar. The yellow vest underneath his coat largely obscures his white shirt, although the collar and cuffs brilliantly contrast with the pink and dark blue of his coat. Copley has taken particular care to show the play of light and shadow across these garments. Note the ruffles in his cuffs, the ripples across his pink collar, and the shadows underneath the vest’s buttonholes. Clearly Copley was pulling out all of the artistic stops for this composition. But it is not only the likeness that shows Copley’s interest in creating a showstopper. If the viewer’s eye begins at Pelham’s face and then moves downward along his right shoulder and arm, they would next notice Pelham’s brightly illuminated (particularly against the dark base of the column) right hand that delicately holds a meticulously painted gold chain. Pelham grasps it between his thumb and index finger, and it runs atop his hand, falling to the underside of his palm, and then is delicately laid atop his pinky. The oval of the end of the chain mirrors the ovals present in the glass of water underneath his hand. And this gold chain leads the eyes rightward towards a pet flying squirrel that nibbles on the meat of a recently cracked nut. Copley has taken particular care in the painting of this small mammal: large obsidian eyes, dark whiskers, grey and black topside with a snowy-white belly and a bushy tail. The most impressive element in this painting, however, may be the beautifully rendered and highly polished mahogany table. In some ways, this piece of furniture serves as a vehicle for Copley to demonstrate his ability to paint reflections of material objects. Reflections of the glass of water, the cracked nut, the squirrel’s belly, and Pelham’s white cuffs can all be seen on the polished tabletop. These elements—chain, glass, squirrel, table—make Boy with a Squirrel as much about things in the painting as it is about the person depicted within it. (https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-americas/british-colonies/colonial-period/a/copley-a-boy-with-a-flying-squirrel)