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Portrait of a Woman
John Wollaston (American, born England, c. 1710–c. 1775)
1749–52
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- 132.6 × 107.2 cm (52 3/16 × 42 3/16 in.)
- Culture
- United States
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of the Americas
- Credit line
- Goodman Fund
- 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
An established portrait painter in England, John Wollaston came to the American colonies to ply his trade in 1749. For the next three years, Wollaston worked in New York, executing numerous portraits for area sitters eager to acquire quality likenesses from a skilled, European-trained artist—a rarity in mid-18th-century America. Wollaston rendered his figures with convincing modeling and forms, excelling in the depiction of colorful draperies. In Portrait of a Woman, as in his other works of the time, the artist employed formulaic poses, gestures, and dress, a result, in part, of looking to English sources for portraiture, but also a means of meeting the many requests for commissions. Beginning in 1753, Wollaston painted in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and South Carolina.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
