Frederick Childe Hassam (1859–1935)

The Pearl Necklace (Portrait of a Lady), ca. 1915–18

Oil on canvas

14 x 17¼ inches

Louis F. Weyand Fund Purchase, 86.26.1

Essay by Sue Canterbury
Associate curator of American art, Dallas Museum of Art

            Among American impressionism’s numerous adherents of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Childe Hassam would emerge as the style’s chief exponent and most successful practitioner.  While he owed an early debt to the French masters, he transformed that impulse into a highly distinctive style that combined the American preference for realism with a mastery of color, light, and rhythmic, textural brushwork.  Those hallmark qualities, and more, are fully expressed in Hassam’s presentation of The Pearl Necklace.

            The overall composition is a perfect balance of form within space.  The center point—vertically and horizontally—around which all pivots is in the sitter’s deeply hued lips.  The cool palette of the background serves as a complementary foil to the warm tones of the figure’s dress and upswept coiffure.  Even though the woman is portrayed in a moment of reverie, the broken, textured strokes of paint in curtains, dress, and hair inject a surface liveliness that compels the eye to seek rest on the smoother, highlighted expanse of flesh where lie the lustrous pearls.  Through this juxtaposition of illusory textures, the artist immerses the onlooker in a colorfully rich and sensate world. 

            The Pearl Necklace, stylistically and technically, stems from the second decade of the twentieth century, a period that was one of the most successful—critically and financially—in Childe Hassam’s long, prolific career.[1] A significant factor in that success was the artist’s New York Window series, created between 1909 and 1922.  His large duplex apartment on the top floor of 130 West Fifty-Seventh Street was the setting where the artist portrayed attractive young women before a bank of south facing, floor-to-ceiling windows of his breakfast/dining room.  The windows, usually draped with fine curtains, were a key compositional element through which light filtered, backlighting the forms of the space’s demure inhabitants.[2] In their high-rise sanctuary, they were isolated from the chaos and commerce that ruled the city far below.  The Pearl Necklace, though not a genre work like those in the New York Window series, is linked to them in matters of time, space, and mood through its contemplative attitude, treatment of light, and decorative setting.

            As the painting’s alternate title suggests, the present work is also a portrait of a specific individual.  Assigning an identity to the sitter is, unfortunately, fraught with challenges.  An old label on the frame indicated that the sitter was the artist’s wife, [Kathleen] Maud Doane (1862–1946).  However, by 1917, Mrs. Hassam would have been 55 years of age.  While the figure’s physical characteristics and the color and style of her hair bear a resemblance to those of Kitty Hughes, one of Hassam’s favorite models from the window series, there are enough subtle differences to prevent positive identification.  Also, since Hassam generalized the facial features of his models in that series, connecting one of them to the sitter of The Pearl Necklace is highly problematic.[3] To complicate matters further, even when the artist did the rare portrait, it has been noted that his goal was to create “an evocative mood through color,” rather than an accurate likeness.[4]

            Regardless of the above hurdles to identifying the sitter, a stronger clue may rest with the provenance of the painting.  On November 15, 1929, barely two weeks after the cataclysmic stock market crash of October 29, this portrait was put up for auction at the American Art Association – Anderson Galleries in New York.  The lot prior to it was a sanguine drawing measuring 14 x 17 inches, titled Portrait Study of a Lady, that was specifically identified as a study for the present painting.  The consignor of both lots was given as “Mrs. Anna E. Little.”[5] The fact that both drawing and oil were in the possession of the same individual suggests a strong possibility that the sitter could well have been Anna E. Little herself or, at the very least, someone very close to her—such as a daughter.[6] Given the timing of the sale, it is highly probable that these works, and several others she owned by Hassam, were sacrifices necessitated by extreme financial distress.

            Like a portal cutting back through time, The Pearl Necklace offers us an intimate glimpse into a life eternally suspended in a moment of reverie.  And, even though the identity of the sitter may be lost to us forever, Hassam portrayed her with an admiration and dignity that immortalizes her essence and beauty for the appreciation of countless generations.

[1] The animated brushwork, the sketchy signature at upper left, and characteristics of the model argue a dating of the work between 1915 and 1918, as first proposed by Katherine Burnside (see Katherine Burnside to Gloria Kittleson, March 11, 1987, Minnesota Museum of American Art object file).  Ms. Burnside and Stuart Feld, both of Hirschl & Adler Galleries, are authors of the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist’s work.

[2] Ulrich W. Heisinger, Childe Hassam: American Impressionist (New York: Jordan-Volpe Gallery; Munich and New York: Prestel Verlag, 1994), 141.

[3] Donelson F. Hoopes, Childe Hassam (New York: Watson-Goupil, 1979), 78.

[4] Ibid., 19.

[5] The sanguine drawing was catalogued as Lot 52 and sold for $70 to J. W. Spencer.  The present painting appeared as Lot 53 and sold for $350 to the John Levy Galleries of New York (Burnside to Kittleson, March 11, 1987).  Locating the preparatory drawing for the oil would offer important information about Hassam’s studio methods and whether the likeness in the painting varied significantly from the initial study in its representation.  Unfortunately, the location of the drawing remains unknown (Katherine Burnside, personal communication, May 9, 2011).

[6]This conjecture receives further support from the knowledge that Mrs. Little’s whole collection, many items of which were by Hassam, went on the block at this auction (Burnside to Kittleson, March 11, 1987).  The number of works sold at auction could situate her as a prominent client who commissioned the portrait or, possibly, was portrayed by the artist in recognition of their ongoing relationship as artist and patron.  Confirmation of either possibility will have to wait until Anna E. Little’s full identity and relationship to Hassam is fully ascertained.