Mrs. Potter Palmer

CC0 Public Domain Designation

1893

Anders Leonard Zorn (Swedish, 1860–1920)

This portrait shows Bertha Palmer holding the ivory gavel she used to preside over meetings of the Board of Lady Managers for the World’s Columbian Exposition, which opened in Chicago in 1893. The board, with Palmer as president, was responsible for organizing the Women’s Building at the fair. Palmer requested Swedish portraitist Anders Zorn for this painting because his impressionistic style was in keeping with her taste as a collector, which was considered radical at the time. While organizing the Exposition, Palmer traveled through Europe acquiring Impressionist works, including several on view in this gallery.

Status: On View, Gallery 273
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Anders Zorn
Title: Mrs. Potter Palmer
Place: Sweden (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.: 1893
Medium: Oil on canvas
Inscriptions: Inscribed lower left: Zorn. / Chicago 1893
Dimensions: 258 × 141.2 cm (101 5/8 × 55 5/8 in.); Framed: 266.7 × 149.9 × 10.2 cm (105 × 59 × 4 in.)
Credit Line: Potter Palmer Collection
Reference Number: 1922.450
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/81576/manifest.json

Karl Asplund, Anders Zorn: His Life and Work (London, 1921), p. 42.
G. Boethius, Zorn: tecknaren, målaren, etsaren, sculptören (Stockholm, 1949), p. 547, fig. 156.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Chicago, 1961), p. 488.
Chicago Historical Society Quarterly 3, 7 (Spring 1953), pp. 214 (ill.), 197.
Ishbel Ross, Silhouette in Diamonds: The Life of Mrs. Potter Palmer (New York, 1960), p. 96, ill.
Jeanne Madeline Weimann, The Fair Woman (Chicago, 1981), p. 579-81 (ill.).
Douglas K. S. Hyland and Hans Henrik Brummer, Zorn: Paintings, Graphics, and Sculpture, exh. cat. (Birmingham Museum of Art, 1986), p. 24, ill. 10.
Hans Henrik Brummer, ZornMCMLXXXIX, exh. cat. (Mora, Zornsamlingarna, 1989), no. 67 (ill.).
Margaret Carroll, “Art Institute Owes Much To 1890s Patrons,” Chicago Tribune (July 15, 1990), ill.
Brigitta Sandtröm, Portraits by Anders Zorn, exh. cat. (Mora, Zornsamlingarna, 1990), p. 52 (ill.).
Colin B. Bailey, “Acrobats at the Cirque Fernando (Francisca and Angelina Wartenberg),” Renoir, Impressionism, and Full-Length Painting. New Haven: Yale University Press and The Frick Collection, 2012. p. 128, fig. 4.
Oliver Tostmann, ed., Anders Zorn: A European Artist Seduces America, exh. cat. (London: Paul Holberton, 2013), 76, 89–90 (ill.).

Sarasota, Fla., John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Palmer Family Collections, February 23-March 24, 1963.
Mora, Sweden, Zorn Museum, Anders Zorn, June 1-August 20, 1989; Kiel, Germany, Kunsthalle zu Kiel, September 3-October 22, 1989; Copenhagen, Statens Museum for Kunst, November 1, 1989-January 10, 1990.
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago’s Dream, A World’s Treasure: The Art Institute of Chicago 1893-1993, 1993, no cat. no.
Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde, Anders Zorn: till ögats fröjd och nationens förgyllning, September 15-December 11, 1994, cat. 59; Göteborgs Konstmuseum, December 26,1994-March 26, 1995.
Chicago History Museum, Bertha Honoré Palmer, May 23, 2009- January 3, 2010, no cat.
Boston, Isabella Steward Gardener Museum, Anders Zorn: A European Artist Seduces America, February 28 – May 13, 2013, cat. 4.
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Legion of Honor, Anders Zorn: Sweden’s Master Painter, November 9, 2013-February 13, 2014; New York; National Academy Museum, February 26-May 25, 2014.
Art Institute of Chicago, John Singer Sargent and Chicago’s Gilded Age, June 27-Septembet 30, 2018.

Commissioned by Mrs. Potter Palmer (died 1918), Chicago, 1893; by descent in the Palmer family; given to the Art Institute, 1922.

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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.

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