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Man with the Cat (Henry Sturgis Drinker)
Cecilia Beaux (born Philadelphia, PA 1855-died Gloucester, MA 1942)
1898
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- 48 x 34 5/8 in. (121.9 x 87.8 cm.)
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Henry Ward Ranger through the National Academy of Design
- Rights
- CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Smithsonian Institution
About this work
Cecilia Beaux's portrait of Henry Sturgis Drinker is an interesting pairing of artist and sitter. Drinker was Beaux's brother-in-law, a railroad executive who later became president of Lehigh University. In the 1890s, men such as Drinker were at the pinnacle of East Coast society, and their tastes shaped public life for decades. Beaux was a fiercely independent woman who lived well, kept handsome lovers, and had a will of iron. At a time when few women could, she carved out a career for herself as a portraitist, and was thought to rival John Singer Sargent. Drinker's mutton-chop whiskers, linen suit, and casual pose convey immense self-assurance, but his steady, almost wary gaze suggests that he recognized in the artist a personality as strong as his own.
