Bessie Potter

William Merritt Chase

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Bessie Potter (1872–1955) was born in Saint Louis and studied in Chicago. She earned a reputation as a sculptor of statuettes in bronze that portray intimate feminine subjects. In 1899, she married the painter Robert Vonnoh and lived in New York, where she and her husband undoubtedly knew Chase. In this portrait, Chase captures Potter's sensitive but reserved personality. Her pose and the soft turban that she wears recall those in a self-portrait (1790; Uffizi, Florence) by the French painter Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (1755–1842), whom Potter apparently admired.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art