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Portrait of Clementina Beach (1774-1855), a student of Gilbert Stuart and the co-founder for Saunder and Beach school in Dorchester, an elite boarding school for girls. Sitter is wearing a white dress with tiered lace collar; paisley shawl draped over her right shoulder. Brown curly hair pinned up with beaded combs. Gilt frame.
portraits
oil paint (paint)
panels (wood)
canvas
Painting
"Artful Stories": In the early years of the nineteenth century when there were few opportunities for genteel women to earn a living, Clementina Beach and Judith Saunders ran one of New Englands elite schools for girls, located in Dorchester, Massachusetts. We do not know whether grateful students commissioned this portrait or Beach commissioned it herself. In either case it is an unusually early portrait of a woman who was painted not because of who her family was but for what she herself had achieved.
448.1
Stuart, Gilbert (American painter, 1755-1828) (Artist)
Boston, Massachusetts, United States
35 1/2 x 30 3/4 x 3 3/4 (HxWxD) (inches)
Museum Purchase
2012.39.1
Massachusetts (United States)
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