Portrait of a Noble Lady in Widow's Weeds

Inscriptions

Inscribed on frame: A LADY 116; No. 36/56

Label

A widow is distinguished by her black garments and distinctive peaked hairstyle. Despite the somberness of the color, black garments were prized because they were difficult to produce. Many black dyes were fleeting or not sufficiently rich. This unknown painter, on the other hand, had numerous carbon-based black pigments from which to choose, whose names indicate their origins: lamp black, earth black, bone black, ivory black, vine black, or peach pit black. The painter harnessed several different blacks to create variation in the widow’s dress. One of the first works displayed on campus that was unrelated to Dartmouth’s history, this painting was originally a rectangle; it was repainted into an oval shape in the 19th century, likely to match the format of other paintings in Dartmouth’s collections.

From the 2025 exhibition Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: Making Colors in Europe, 1400–1800, curated by Elizabeth Rice Mattison, Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Academic Programming and Curator of European Art

Exhibition History

Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: Making Colors in Europe, 1400–1800, Harrington Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 6, 2025 - November 14, 2026.

In Pursuit of Attribution: A New Look at the College Collection, Carpenter Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 17-October 23, 1977.

Permanent Collection, Carpenter Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, October 28, 1977-July 9, 1978.

Publication History

Catalogue of Portraits, and other works of Art at Dartmouth College, Hanover: Dartmouth College, 1932, p. 25, no. 94.

George Hill Evans, Catalogue of Portraits and other works of art in the gallery of Dartmouth College, Hanover: Dartmouth College, 1901, p. 33, no. 116.

T. Barton Thurber, European Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2008, p.6, ill., fig. 8.

Provenance

Collection of Cardinal Joseph Fesch (1763-1839) (Napoleon Bonaparte's uncle and liason to the Pope), Palazzo Falconieri, Rome, Italy; purchased by Albert Gallatin Hoit (1809-1856, Class of 1829) from the Cardinal's estate sale (no. 157) in Rome, about 1841; given to present collection, 1842.

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Subjects