# Portrait of a Lady

**Thomas Wilmer Dewing** (born Boston, MA 1851-died New York City 1938)  
ca. 1895  
oil on canvas  
24 x 20 in. (60.9 x 50.8 cm)

Courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, 1929.6.34. [The museum's record](https://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=6773).

## About this work

Mollie Chatfield came to be known as a classic “Dewing girl,” a type described in a Boston paper as “intellectual enough to be worthy of Boston, aristocratic enough to be worthy of Philadelphia, well dressed enough to be a New Yorker but seldom pretty enough to evoke the thought of Baltimore.” Thomas Wilmer Dewing showed her with a flirtatious sideward glance, lips slightly parted, and one hand resting self-consciously over her breast. This provocative pose hints at the romantic relationship between artist and model. Dewing’s patron Charles Lang Freer helped the artist keep his affair with Chatfield hidden from his wife, Maria Oakey Dewing. (Hobbs, Beauty Reconfigured: The Art of Thomas Wilmer Dewing, 1996)

_Text from the Smithsonian American Art Museum._

Thomas Wilmer Dewing painted this in about 1895, aged 44. It is now at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC.

### How it was made

- **Oil paint.** Pigment ground in a drying oil, usually linseed. It dries slowly, so painters could blend on the canvas, build up thin translucent glazes, and rework a picture over weeks. Canvas replaced wooden panels in the 1500s because it is lighter and can be rolled.

### [Thomas Wilmer Dewing](https://www.ochreeditions.com/artists/thomas-wilmer-dewing)

born Boston, MA 1851-died New York City 1938

## Facts

- Type: Painting
- The artist was 44
- Real size: about 24 × 20 in (61 × 51 cm). The 18 × 24 in print is close to life size.
- Century: 19th century
- Subjects: Women, Portraits
- Colour: brown
- Rights: public domain (CC0 1.0); free to use for any purpose.

## Get it

- Free download, full resolution: https://img.ochreeditions.com/m/1878.jpg?dl=1
- Image: https://img.ochreeditions.com/a/1878/1920.jpg
- Giclée reproduction on Hahnemühle Photo Rag: 8 × 10 in $28; 11 × 14 in $38; 12 × 16 in $42; 16 × 20 in $56; 18 × 24 in $68
- Framed reproduction: 8 × 10 in $78; 11 × 14 in $98; 12 × 16 in $108; 16 × 20 in $138; 18 × 24 in $164
- Canvas reproduction: 8 × 10 in $58; 11 × 14 in $72; 12 × 16 in $79; 16 × 20 in $98
- Print-ready file: 8 × 10 in $2; 11 × 14 in $2; 12 × 16 in $3; 16 × 20 in $3; 18 × 24 in $3

Sizes stop where the museum's file would print below 150 pixels per inch. Everything sold is a reproduction, made to order. [Order a print](https://www.ochreeditions.com/art/portrait-of-a-lady-si-saam-1929-6-34).