# Portrait of a Woman with a Shawl

- By: Erastus Salisbury Field (born Leverett, MA 1805-died Plumtrees, MA 1900)
- Date: ca. 1825-1850
- Medium: oil on canvas
- Classification: Paintings
- Dimensions: 35 1/4 x 26 in. (89.5 x 66.0 cm.)
- Credit line: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill, Jr. and museum purchase made possible by Ralph Cross Johnson
- Museum: [Smithsonian Institution](https://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=8285)
- Rights: [CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/web/2f709cdbbeb22a33484c3240e149917b.jpg
- Who can see it: Tweens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

Erastus Salisbury Field painted this portrait while working as a traveling portrait painter, fulfilling commissions around the Connecticut River valley. Portrait of a Woman with a Shawl is typical of Field’s plain-style portraits, with simplified forms and few shadows. Such portraits contrast with his later dreamscapes and historical and biblical scenes, which are often rich in fantastic and humorous details.