2-999-684 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Portrait of a Woman, 1846-1849. Depicted in three-quarter length, the subject turns slightly to the left. Her hairstyle, pulled back in a bun with a cascade of corkscrew curls along the side of the head, was fashionable on both sides of the Atlantic and helps date the portrait to the 1840s. Although she demurely directs her eyes downward, there is strength of character in the young woman's clear gaze and determined expression. The subject is not identified, but she resembles the artist's first wife, Mary Theresa Buckler, with whom he had a tempestuous and ultimately failed relationship.