# The Countess

- By: Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze (born Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany 1816-died Washington, DC 1868)
- Date: 1838
- Medium: oil on canvas
- Classification: Paintings
- Dimensions: 34 5/8 x 27 1/8 in. (88.0 x 69.0 cm)
- Credit line: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase
- Museum: [Smithsonian Institution](https://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=14564)
- Rights: [CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/web/4c8e3bb2d6d183096ab552d8cd83b3f1.jpg
- Who can see it: Tweens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

In The Countess, Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze concentrated on capturing the handsome and serious features of his sitter; the unfinished, sketchy treatment and outlines of hands show the artist working out the details of his composition. Leutze was an itinerant portraitist in 1838, and the inscription below the portrait reveals that he painted this work either in a friend’s studio or a rented space. The painting’s rich brushwork and colors reflect the style of two popular portraitists in Philadelphia, Thomas Sully and Gilbert Stuart.