Portrait of Mary Adeline Williams
Thomas Eakins (American, 1844–1916)
1899
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- 61 × 50.8 cm (24 × 20 1/16 in.)
- Culture
- Philadelphia
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of the Americas
- Credit line
- Friends of American Art Collection
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Thomas Eakins aimed to paint the human figure with uncompromising realism, executing likenesses that focus on introspection and psychological depth. A family friend, Mary Adeline Williams sat for this portrait in 1899, a year before she would move into the Philadelphia home of Eakins and his wife, artist Susan MacDowell Eakins. Although the composition presents Addie (as she was known) as straight-laced and severe, she was described by Susan Eakins as active and engaged—riding bicycles, going to art exhibitions, and socializing between the sittings for this work.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
