Emily B. Waite Pastel Drawing Portrait of Woman with Pearl Earrings

Item Details

Pastel on paper

A pastel drawing study portrait on paper of a woman wearing pearl earrings by well-listed American artist Emily Burling Waite (Massachusetts/Rhode Island; 1887 – 1980). This drawing depicts a three-quarter portrait of a young woman with short black hair, red lips, and blue cheerful eyes gazing directly at the viewer while wearing dangling pearl earrings. Rendered with subtle pastel applications with visible graphite underdrawing. Signed in graphite to the lower left corner. It is presented behind glass, under a white mat board and housed in a silver-tone frame.

Emily B. Waite is best known for her oil portraits, still life paintings, and etchings. She began her formal artistic training at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where she studied from 1908 through 1910 under Philip Leslie Hale and Francis Luis Mora. In 1910 she received the Paige Traveling Scholarship and traveled extensively for two years throughout France, Spain, the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia, and Italy, studying and copying master paintings. Waite’s work is represented in the collections of numerous distinguished institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D. C.; and the Library of Congress, Washington, D. C., among many others.

Condition

- minor abrasion to frame.

Dimensions

- measures in frame; image size measures: 11.75" W x 16.25" H.

Item #

16BOS020-296