Artwork · 19th century · Thomas Eakins

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Portrait of Mary Adeline Williams

Thomas Eakins1899Oil on canvas61 × 50.8 cm

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At a glance

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A middle-aged woman in a black dress and a stiff white collar turns her head slightly against a dark, empty background.
Thomas Eakins of Philadelphia painted his longtime family friend Mary Adeline Williams in 1899.
He left every line and shadow of her face in place, so the longer you look, the more it feels like watching someone think.

Reading the picture

4 places to look closer

Tap a number on the painting to jump to its note, or a close-up to see that spot in the whole picture.

Zoom in on the eyes. Light comes from the left, catching her forehead and the bridge of her nose, while the right half of her face sinks into shadow. A deep crease sits between her brows, and her eyelids hang heavy. Does the lit eye seem to wear a different mood from the shaded one?
Move down to the mouth. Her lips are pressed together, with no hint of a smile. Around the corner of the mouth, strokes of reddish and cream paint overlap roughly. Up close, the brushwork is left unpolished.
Look at the white collar. The crisp fabric is folded over and fastened at the throat. This bright patch, set between the dark dress and the dark background, pulls your eye straight up to her face.
Now check the puffed sleeve on the left. It is built from a few broad sweeps of dark gray and black, laid down quickly. Compare that with the face, which is worked over with care. Your eye goes where the effort went.

When it was painted

In 1899 Eakins was fifty-five. He had once been a well-known teacher at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, but in 1886 a dispute over his teaching methods forced him out. In the years that followed, he often painted people from his own circle rather than paying clients, asking friends and acquaintances to sit for him.

Mary Adeline Williams, known as Addie, was one of them. She had been a childhood playmate of Eakins's sister, and she never married. In 1899 she sat for this portrait.

Eakins's wife, the painter Susan Macdowell Eakins, kept a diary, and Addie appears in it as anything but stiff. Between sittings, Susan wrote, Addie rode bicycles, went to art exhibitions, and spent time with friends. That lively woman is hard to find in the guarded face on the canvas.

In December 1899 Eakins's father died. Soon after, Thomas and Susan invited Addie to come and live with them in their Philadelphia home. Eakins painted her a second time around 1900, and that portrait now belongs to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

This first portrait came to the Art Institute of Chicago in 1939. When the National Gallery of Art in Washington held an Eakins retrospective in 1961, it was shown as Addie, Woman in Black. Look at her eyes once more. Eakins knew a cheerful friend who rode a bicycle, and he chose to paint the quiet person behind her.

The painter

Thomas Eakins

1844–1916

When painting this, the artist was about 55 years old

All paintings by Thomas Eakins →

More by the same painter

The Writing Master1882

Signora Gomez d'Arza1901–2

Questions to think about

Look for itCan you trace with your finger the line where light ends and shadow begins on her face?
Why?Addie was busy and outgoing, so why do you think Eakins painted her looking so serious and still?
What about you?Today many of us smooth out wrinkles in photos before posting them. If someone gave you a portrait that kept every line and shadow, would you feel honored or a little hurt?

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