# A Lady in Black

- By: Kenyon Cox (born Warren, OH 1856-died New York City 1919)
- Date: 1880
- Medium: oil on canvas
- Classification: Paintings
- Dimensions: 20 3/4 x 12 7/8 in. (52.7 x 32.7 cm)
- Credit line: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Allyn Cox
- Museum: [Smithsonian Institution](https://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=5872)
- Rights: [CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/web/c355191b79edeef9da971751cdc60040.jpg
- Who can see it: Tweens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

This is a portrait of the wife of Kenyon Cox’s friend the painter Lowell Dyer. In 1880, Cox exhibited the painting in Philadelphia, and also entered it in a Paris show under the French title Dame en noir. This masterful portrait sketch focuses our eyes on Mrs. Dyer’s spirited expression and tilt of the head. Cox’s fast brushwork gives the lavish hat ribbons tied at her neck the same exuberance as his sitter’s personality.