Madelaine

Apparently unaware of the viewer, Madelaine gazes into the remote distance off the right edge of the composition as if lost in thought, but the shadows cast over her composed features make her inner self inaccessible to the viewer. Her remoteness and ethereality are complemented by Dewing's delicate technique, which lends his oil paint the shimmering delicacy of pastel, a medium in which he excelled. The beautiful young woman is turned in profile to the right and seated in a chair. Her fingers clasp the right arm in a refined gesture, while the chair's other arm appears strangely elongated to accommodate her extended left forearm. A slight shadow indicates that her seat is placed close to the green wall that forms the simple backdrop to the subject and sets off the delicate tints of her pale complexion, dark hair, and form-fitting pink dress. The tones of the chair, the woman, and the backdrop subtly harmonize for a unifying effect.

Madelaine has been dated to the beginning of Dewing's intense involvement in the refined images of languorous, elegant young women in spare settings that would become his hallmark, and the artist later described it as one of his best such works. The model, about whom little is known, has been identified in several other paintings by the artist. Madelaine is the only one of these images to name the sitter in the title, but like Dewing's Portrait of a Lady Holding a Rose (TF 1999.46), also in the Terra Foundation's collection, this work is anything but a portrait in the conventional sense, for it avoids any deliberate expression of the subject's social persona and psychological individuality. Presented in a deliberate vacuum of sentiment, moral theme, or narrative, the woman is consciously posed, even manipulated, by the artist for purely decorative effect as she becomes one with the exquisite artwork in which she appears.

  At the turn of the twentieth century, numerous American and European artists were attracted to the subject of the solitary beautiful young woman posed with equally beautiful decorative objects or fashionable items of dress. Along with Madelaine, such works as Spring Flowers (Peonies) (TF 1999.32) by William Merritt Chase and The Mirror (TF 1999.22) by Dennis Miller Bunker (also in the Terra Foundation collection) demonstrate the portrayal of such women according to the revolutionary idea of "art for art's sake" espoused by influential American expatriate artist James McNeill Whistler, whose works and iconoclastic ideas began to influence American artists in the early 1880s.

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Galaxy of Ladies/American Paintings from the Paul Magriel Collection, Finch College Museum of Art, New York, March 14, 1966–?. [exh. cat.]

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American Impressionism, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington (organizer). Venues: Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, January 3–March 2, 1980; The Frederick S. Wight Art Gallery, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, March 9–May 4, 1980; Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois, May 16–June 22, 1980; The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Massachusetts, July 1–August 31, 1980. [exh. cat.]

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Woman, Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois, February 21–April 22, 1984. [exh. cat.]

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Collection Cameo, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, November 1995.

Collection Cameo, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, November 1999.

(Re)Presenting Women, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, October 16, 2001–January 13, 2002.

Artistic Independence in 1898: The Ten American Painters, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, May 4–July 21, 2002.

Deux collections en regard: oeuvres de la Terra Foundation for the Arts et du Detroit Institute of Arts (Side by Side: Works from the Terra Foundation for the Arts and the Detroit Institute of Arts), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, March 2–June 1, 2003. [exh. cat.]

Copley to Cassatt: Masterworks from the Terra Collection, New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut and Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut, September 5–December 7, 2003.

Visages de l'Amérique: de George Washington à Marilyn Monroe (Faces of America: From George Washington to Marilyn Monroe), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, April 1–October 31, 2004. [exh. cat.]

Twarze Ameryki: Portrety z kolekcji Terra Foundation for American Art, 1770–1940 (Faces of America: Portraits from the collection of the Terra Foundation for American Art, 1770–1940), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France and Miedzynarodowe Centrum Kultury (International Cultural Center), Crakow, Poland (organizers). Venue: International Cultural Center, Crakow, Poland, February 15–May 7, 2006. [exh. cat.]

Portrait of a Lady : peintures et photographies américaines en France, 1870–1915 (Portrait of a Lady: American Paintings and Photographs in France, 1870–1915), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, Giverny, France and Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France (organizers). Venues: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, Giverny, France, April 1–July 14, 2008; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France, September 25, 2008–January 5, 2009. [exh. cat.]

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Madelaine, Thomas Wilmer Dewing. Collection Cameo sheet, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, November 1999. Ill. (black & white).

Kennedy, Elizabeth and Sophie Lévy. Faces of America: Portraits of the Terra Foundation for the Arts Collection, 1770–1940. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2004. Text pp. 16, 31 (checklist); ill. cover (color), p. 52 (color).

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