Miss Mary Lillian Duke

Miss Mary Lillian Duke is a 1911 oil-on-canvas painting by the Spanish painter Joaquín Sorolla.

Description

The painting is part of the collection of the Nasher Museum of Art in Durham. It is a portrait of the 24-year old woman who commissioned it, Mary Lillian Duke. It was painted in a park. It depicts Mary in a white dress, standing with one hand resting on the pedestal of a statue while the other holds a black hat. She wears a scarf of the same color that falls on her arms, resembling the color of her hair and creating a strong contrast with the light colors that she was wearing. To make the portrait more graceful, Mary had a rose pinned on her dress near her chest and the pink colour of the flower stands out above everything.

Provenance

The painting was one of the four paintings sent by Benjamin Duke to Sorolla, for his residence in New York, which was then under construction. Nicholas Duke Biddle, a relative of Mary Lillian Duke Biddle, donated the painting to Duke University. Since that time, it has belonged to the collection of the Nasher Museum of Art in Durham.