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THE DAILY TIMES-STAR

New Portrait of Sister of Painter Unearthed

[image: photo of painting of woman]

MISS MARY DUVENECK 

  There were three women who figured largely in the life of Duveneck. These were his mother, who was the inspiration of his early career and who encouraged and helped him to his later accomplishment; his wife, Elizabeth Boott, herself an artist of great ability, who came directly into his life at the zenith of his career and, lastly, Mary Duveneck, his sister, who, in the latter part of his life, after the death of his wife and mother, became his constant and devoted companion. Of these three women he has left notable portraits. Two of these, of his wife and mother, are in our own museum, and that of his wife is considered one of the finest examples of that period in his painting when he was influenced by French art. An early picture of his sister, Mary, or Molly, as he called her, is in a private collection, but is destined, at some future date, to be giveen to an Ohio museum. A later portrait of his  sister, Mary, has just come to light, and is here reproduced for the first time. It must have been painted many years ago, for the costume is that of the late eighties or early nineties. The expression of the face is rather sad but tenderly painted in those exquisite soft tones of Duveneck's palette, and with all of the characteristics of his careful manner of painting flesh tones and also of his quick stops when it came to the accessories which are only touched in. We are possibly too near the costume of that period to find it picturesque, but in another decade we may find it as much so as those quaint costumes of a Holbein drawing or those extraordinary hats of Gainsborough's paintings. 

Duveneck has left us a wonderful record of his loved ones, and some day they  will have great historical significance.

                 MARY L. ALEXANDER.