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The Necklace
Alice Pike Barney (born Cincinnati, OH 1857-died Los Angeles, CA 1931)
1898
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- 18 3/8 x 16 1/8 in. (46.6 x 41.1 cm)
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Laura Dreyfus Barney and Natalie Clifford Barney in memory of their mother, Alice Pike Barney
- 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
Alice Pike Barney studied in Paris with portrait painter Emile Auguste Carolus-Duran, who believed that a sitter's outward appearance reflected his or her inner character. The Necklace, which was probably a self-portrait, shows a self-assured woman with a gold necklace. Her direct gaze and the portrait's dramatic lighting lend her an almost haughty air, hinting at Barney's independent and somewhat rebellious character.
