Mrs. Theodore Atkinson Jr. is a portrait painting by John Singleton Copley. Copley completed the painting in 1765. The painting is now housed in the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Subject Frances Deering Wentworth (1745–1813) was born into a wealthy and well-connected family. Her parents were Samuel Wentworth and Elizabeth Deering. When she was a young teenager, she had fallen in love with her first cousin, John Wentworth. However, he was too invested in establishing his career, and he left America to go to London. In London he managed his family's business. Back in America, Frances was 16 and fell in love with another one of her first cousins, Theodore Atkinson. They wed on May 13, 1762 and moved into their new home in 1765 in Portsmouth. During this time, Theodore commissioned John Singleton Copley to paint a portrait of his wife to display in their home. In 1767, John Wentworth made his triumphant return to the American colonies. He was well-established and was now the governor of New Hampshire. Theodore had been in poor health for quite some time and it was rumored that Frances and John, both still in love, were having an affair. Theodore died on October 28, 1769, and a burial followed. Fueling the rumors, Frances and John wed the week following Theodore's death. At the time, Frances wedding shortly after her husband's death was the talk of the town and continued to be for some time. In Harriett Elizabeth Prescott Spofford's 1871 book New England Legends, she wrote: “On one day Theodore breathed his last. His burial took place on the following Wednesday; by the Governor’s order all the bells in town were tolled, flags were hung at half-mast, and minute-guns were fired from the fort and from the ships-of-war in the harbor. On Sunday the weeping widow, clad in crapes, listened in church to the funeral eulogies; on Monday her affliction was mitigated; on Tuesday all the fingers of the seamstresses of the country roundabout were flying; and on the next Sunday, in the white satins and jewels and fardingales [hooped skirts] of a bride, she walked up the aisle the wife of Governor Wentworth.” They remained in New Hampshire with John as governor. The New Hampshire towns of Deering and Francestown were named after her through John's orders. On June 13, 1775, the brink of the American Revolutionary War, the Wentworths fled