Young Girl Seated

Thomas Wilmer Dewing painted many images of young, elegant women who gaze away from the viewer as if lost in thought. The delicate brushstrokes in this painting emphasize the soft, gauzy material of the girl’s dress, and her skin appears pale against the dark background, creating a sense of fragility and tenderness. Dewing was surrounded by strong women—his wife was an artist and suffragist and his daughter was “headstrong”—and his idyllic images of ladies at leisure suggest that he was responding to the changing role of women at the turn of the twentieth century. (Hobbs, Beauty Reconfigured, 1996)