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Portrait of a Woman (Miss Gertrude Bloede)
Abbott Handerson Thayer (born Boston, MA 1849-died Dublin, NH 1921)
ca. 1881
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- 16 5/8 x 14 in. (42.2 x 35.7 cm)
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly
- Rights
- CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access), 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 Smithsonian Institution
About this work
Gertrude Bloede was the sister of Abbott Thayer’s first wife, Kate. The Bloedes were German immigrants who lived in Brooklyn and regularly entertained a circle of intellectuals. Both daughters were highly creative and independent: Kate was an artist, and Gertrude was a noted writer who published her romantic poetry under the pseudonym Stuart Sterne. In this portrait sketch, Thayer gave his sister-in-law a faraway look, as though she were lost in thought, perhaps composing a poem.
