Paul Revere

Paul Revere sits in his shirtsleeves at his workbench, a gleaming silver teapot cradled in one hand and his chin resting on the other, engraving tools spread before him as he looks out in thought. John Singleton Copley, colonial America's finest portraitist, paints the Boston silversmith not as a gentleman but as a working craftsman, proud of his skill - an unusually direct, dignified image of an artisan. Now in Boston and made on the eve of revolution, it has become an icon of American self-reliance and the dignity of skilled labor.