Clara L. White as a Child
1886
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
1886
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Clara L. White as a Child is a 1886 by Unknown, a Impressionism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
A little girl in a white dress sits stiffly against a dark background. Her hair is parted neatly, and her hands rest on her lap. This painting feels like a snapshot—small, detailed, and personal. It was made around the same time photography became popular, so it might have been meant to look like a photo. The artist even wrote the girl’s name and life dates on the back, which is rare for a painting this size. To see more small, lifelike portraits like this, look up sfumato.
Virtuoso painting is possible on this very intimate scale, yielding an image that lies on the border between the worlds of photography and the painted miniature. Because the subject’s name and life dates were written on the back, we have found out that White (1883–1987), who never married, spent her life in the vicinity of Winchester, Connecticut, and worked at least into her late sixties as a stenographer and later, secretary to the principal of a school.
There is a black-and-white photograph underneath all the paint here.
Read the full account in the museum source.
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