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| Catharine Lorillard Wolfe (1828–1887) |
Artist:Alexandre Cabanel (French, Montpellier 1823–1889 Paris)
Date:1876
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:67 1/2 x 42 3/4 in. (171.5 x 108.6 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Collection, Bequest of Catharine Lorillard Wolfe, 1887
The chic satin evening gown that collector and philanthropist Catharine Lorillard Wolfe donned for portrait sittings in Paris belies her reputation as "quiet and unassuming." Wolfe, the first female benefactor of The Met, was said to be the richest unmarried woman in the United States. Her cousin John Wolfe encouraged her patronage of Cabanel, a celebrated society portraitist and genre painter, and other preeminent European academic artists. She bequeathed this portrait, amid numerous artworks, to the museum in 1887 along with an acquisitions endowment—a gift heralded by the press as greatly elevating the profile of public collections of modern art in New York.
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