Woman before the Mirror

1925

Ellen Emmet Rand
American, 1875–1941

Ellen Emmet Rand worked principally as a portraitist. Yet Woman before the Mirror is instead a dynamic figure study, showcasing her assured brushwork and vibrant palette. Executed in 1925, the painting demonstrates the artist’s interest in elements both old and new: The figure wears 19th-century dress, which Rand rendered in a painterly realism inspired by Spanish Baroque artist Diego Velázquez. The woman’s intense gaze in reflection, however, suggests an assertive self-presentation that is decidedly modern. A trailblazer herself, Rand trained at the Art Students League in New York and then with American sculptor and painter Frederick MacMonnies in Paris in the 1890s. She supported her family with her art from her student years onward, receiving considerable acclaim in her day as a female professional.

Status: On View, Gallery 178
Department: Arts of the Americas

Artist: Ellen Emmet Rand
Title: Woman before the Mirror
Place: United States (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1925
Medium: Oil on board
Inscriptions: Signed and dated, upper right: Ellen Emmet Rand / 1925
Dimensions: 70.8 × 54.6 cm (27 7/8 × 21 1/2 in.)
Credit Line: Mr. and Mrs. Frederick G. Wacker Jr. Endowment Fund
Reference Number: 2019.711

Rothschild Fine Arts, Inc., New York, by 1983 [email dated March 6, 2019, in curatorial file]; Michelle K. and J. Steven Manolis, Palm Beach, FL, 1983; consigned to Vose Galleries, Boston, 2018; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2019.

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