Woman with Poodle (Portrait of the artist’s wife, Maud Harrison Gibbs)

Gibbs often worked in pastels. Here he shows his virtuosity with the medium in a full-length portrait of his wife, Maude Harrison Gibbs, a well-known young woman in Philadelphia society. Dressed for a public outing, she promenades through Fairmount Park with her perfectly coiffed poodle.

Maud Harrison Gibbs was a classically trained pianist and the granddaughter of Joseph Harrison, Jr., a railroad magnate and one of Philadelphia’s great art collectors. Woodmere’s founder, Charles Knox Smith, purchased several important paintings from Harrison’s collection, including Benjamin West’s The Fatal Wounding of Sir Philip Sidney and Jasper Cropsey’s Spirit of Peace.

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