Description:
bust portrait of young girl with light colored curly hair and wide grin on face; child; girl
Label Text:
This is one of several portraits of Dutch children that Henri made during a summer stay in Haarlem in the Netherlands. When writing about painting the people he observed in the Netherlands, Henri mentioned portraits by seventeenth-century Dutch artists such as Frans Hals and Rembrandt. His inspiration from these artists may be observed in the loose brushwork and thick application of paint. In this and his related studies of laughter the artist aimed to capture the fleeting nature and immediacy of passing emotion.
The back of this canvas bears the inscription “88F,” a reference to the eighty-eighth painting Robert Henri recorded in his journal (book “F”) from 1910. The journal entry notes the title of the painting as “Laughing Girl” and describes it as “near profile, check dress, blue apron, light blue chain or ribbon, red cheeks.”
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=SC+2002.30 |
