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This portrait of an unidentified woman represents the ideal
refined lady of the mid 19th century. Every line of this exquisitely
detailed picture contributes to a sense of grace, poise, modesty,
and the fragile beauty of a spiritually motivated woman.
She is dressed in a watered silk blue gown, whose fluid lines
emphasize her slim waist. The lace undergarment that fills the
matching V of her bodice echoes the wisps of lace around her
neck, below her sleeves, and in her hair. The delicately patterned
paisley shawl surrounding her contrasts with the blue of her
gown. The campstool on the right suggests her interest in nature,
an appropriate pursuit for a woman of a certain social class.
Her calm expression, regular features, small mouth and wide blue
eyes contribute to the representation of the ideal, innocent
woman.
Along the wall on the lower left are the faint lines of a
monogram, an encircled W, above the initials WS followed by the
date, 1852.
William Wallace Scott is recorded as a painter of miniature
portraits as well as watercolors and landscapes. The minute detail
seen here is no doubt due to his experience with portrait miniatures.
Scott was born in Roxbury, MA. in 1919. A precocious talent,
he is recorded as having exhibited at the Royal Academy in London
by the age of twenty-two. His work was shown at the Royal Academy
for the next fifteen years, which suggests that Scott lived abroad
for at least part his early adulthood. As this painting is dated
1852, the portrait is probably of an English subject.
Scott was no doubt back in the States by the 1860’s,
as he exhibited at the National Academy of Design in NYC from
1866-78 and at the Brooklyn Art Association from 1868-1877. By
1889, he was showing at the Boston Art Club. He died in Cambridge,
MA in 1905. |
