TitleHead--Young Girl Reading
Artist
Benjamin Curtis Porter
(1843/45 - 1908)
Date1877
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsUnframed: 28 1/8 x 21 1/4 in.
Framed: 35 7/8 x 29 x 2 1/2 in.
SignedSigned and dated, lower left: "B.C. Porter 1877"
SubmissionNA diploma presentation, May 2, 1881
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY
Object number1018-P
Label TextThe date and subject of 1018-P indicate that it was the painting exhibited by Porter at the Academy's 1877 Annual as Girl Reading. One of four Porter works accepted that year, Girl Reading received less press attention than the two full-length female portraits by the artist which were also displayed. (The critic of the New York Times liked it but complained of its "lack of force.")As a group, though, the works established Porter's reputation in New York. The reviewer for the New York Tribune championed the pictorial qualities of the paintings which lifted them above mere portrait likenesses. Commenting on the group of Porter works, he wrote, "[They] are deep, mellow, rich, the color issuing from dusky backgrounds, the figure full and maturely rounded, a quiet sumptuousness in the accessories, and over all a reposeful feeling, suggesting the suspension, not the absence, of action and passion. These are very noble and beautiful pictures."
