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Portrait of woman in light blue lacy gown

A light-skinned woman faces the viewer with her head tilted to the left. She has high cheekbones, a strong jaw, and curly, slightly messy brown hair. Light from the left reflects in the woman’s hazel eyes and on the tip of her nose. The right side of her face is in shadow. Her lips are full and slightly parted. The woman’s collarbones are well-defined, as are the tendons in her neck. She wears a light blue dress with a lace ruffle that covers the shoulders and top of the bust. Her right arm is extended.

Gallery Text

Thomas Eakins painted during a period in American history when the roles of men and women were at once rigidly prescribed and actively questioned; he explored questions of gender throughout his career. In this portrait, Eakins disavowed period notions of the ideal female body to emphasize the sitter’s inner life. With her muscular neck and shoulders, dreamy, unfocused gaze, and melancholic air, Alice Kurtz is not merely an object for the male gaze, but a psychologically complex, self-possessed personality.

The portrait was commissioned by the sitter’s father, William B. Kurtz, a prominent Philadelphia banker. He was displeased with the picture, complaining that Eakins had reduced his healthy and athletic daughter to “a bag of bones, an anatomical sketch.” He dispatched the portrait to the attic of the family’s Philadelphia home, where it remained until 1925.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1969.1
People
Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins, American (Philadelphia, PA 1844 - 1916 Philadelphia, PA)
Title
Miss Alice Kurtz
Classification
Paintings
Work Type
painting
Date
1903
Places
Creation Place: North America, United States
Culture
American
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/300051

Location

Location
Level 2, Room 2710, North Arcade
View this object's location on our interactive map

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
59.4 x 49.2 cm (23 3/8 x 19 3/8 in.)
framed: 85 x 74.3 x 4.5 cm (33 7/16 x 29 1/4 x 1 3/4 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • Signed: l.r.: EAKINS

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Given by Thomas Eakins to Mr. and Mrs. Willaim Kurtz, Philadelphia (parents of the sitter), 1903.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift in part of Mrs. John Whiteman (Alice Kurtz); purchase in part with funds contributed by friends of John Coolidge, Director, 1948-1968
Accession Year
1969
Object Number
1969.1
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Publication History

  • Lloyd Goodrich, Thomas Eakins: His Life and Work (New York, NY, 1933), p. 139, no. 379
  • Sylvan Schendler, Eakins, Little, Brown & Company (Boston, MA, 1967), figs. 143, 265, pp. 294 f.
  • John Coolidge, "Portrait of a Young Woman", Fogg Art Museum Newsletter, Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, January 1969), vol. VI, no. 3, pp. 1-2
  • Acquisitions, 1969-1970, Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 1970), ill. p. 79
  • Kenyon Castle Bolton, III, Peter G. Huenink, Earl A. Powell III, Harry Z. Rand, and Nanette C. Sexton, American Art at Harvard, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 1972), cat. 113, ill.
  • Gordon Hendricks, The Life and Work of Thomas Eakins, Grossman Publishers (New York, NY, 1974), pp. 263, 265, no. 138, ill. p. 329
  • John Wilmerding, "Harvard and American Art", Apollo (June 1978), vol. CVII, no. 196, pp. 490-495, p. 494, fig. 3
  • Lloyd Goodrich, Thomas Eakins, National Gallery of Art/Harvard University Press (Washington, D.C. and Cambridge, MA, 1982), pp. 91, 93, cat. 188, ill.
  • Kristin A. Mortimer and William G. Klingelhofer, Harvard University Art Museums: A Guide to the Collections, Harvard University Art Museums and Abbeville Press (Cambridge and New York, 1986), p. 186, cat. 212, ill.
  • Masterpieces of world art : Fogg Art Museum, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Busch-Reisinger Museum, 1997
  • Kathleen Spies, "Figuring the Neurasthenic: Thomas Eakins, Nervous Illness, and Gender in Victorian America", Nineteenth Century Studies (1998), 12, pp. 85-109, p. 87, repr. p. 88 as fig. 3
  • Kathleen Spies, "Figuring the Neurasthenic: Thomas Eakins, Nervous Illness, and Gender in Victorian America", exh. cat., ed. Katherine Williams and Zachary Ross, Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts (Stanford, 2004), p. 38, repr. p. 39 as fig. 22
  • Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr., Virginia Anderson, and Kimberly Orcutt, ed., American Paintings at Harvard, Volume Two, Paintings, Drawings, Pastels and Stained Glass by Artists Born 1826-1856, Harvard Art Museums and Yale University Press (U.S.) (Cambridge, MA and New Haven, CT, 2008), p. 97-98, cat. 65, ill. p. 97
  • Stephan Wolohojian and Alvin L. Clark, Jr., Harvard Art Museum/ Handbook, ed. Stephan Wolohojian, Harvard Art Museum (Cambridge, 2008), ill. p. 169
  • Molly Hutton, Beyond Realism: The Art of Kent Bellows 1970-2005, Kent Bellows Studio and Center for Visual Arts (Omaha, Nebraska, 2010), ill. p. 16

Exhibition History

  • American Art at Harvard, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 04/19/1972 - 06/18/1972
  • Master Paintings from the Fogg Collection, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 04/13/1977 - 08/31/1977
  • Portraits of Thomas Eakins, National Portrait Gallery, London, 10/08/1993 - 01/23/1994
  • The Persistence of Memory: Continuity and Change in American Cultures, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 07/29/1995 - 05/13/2001
  • 32Q: 2710 North Arcade, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 01/01/2050

Subjects and Contexts

  • Collection Highlights
  • Google Art Project

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu