
Read the visual description
A young girl with long blond hair and smooth, pale skin is shown from the chest up facing our left in profile in this vertical portrait painting. She has large brown eyes under faint brows, a petite nose, and her coral-pink lips are closed. Her hair, which falls below her shoulders, is held in place with a scarlet-red headband, and short bangs fringe her forehead. A black hat with an upturned brim and gently curving crown sits on the back of her head with ribbons streaming down her back, and a loosely painted gold earring dangles from her ear. Her black cape has a pewter-gray collar and hem around the shoulders. A touch of red at the chest suggests a bow. The background is streaked with teal blue over pale yellow. The artist dated the upper left corner, 1873, and signed the top right, “J J HENNER.”
National Gallery of Art · Painting
Alsatian Girl
Jean-Jacques Henner
- Date
- 1873
- Medium
- oil on wood
- Dimensions
- overall: 27.2 x 18.7 cm (10 11/16 x 7 3/8 in.) framed: 43.2 x 35.6 cm (17 x 14 in.)
- Classification
- Painting
- Accession number
- 1963.10.32
- Credit line
- Chester Dale Collection
- Time span
- 1851 to 1875
- Department
- CF
Subjects and terms
- painted surface
- French
- girl
- portrait
- Academic
- Alsatian
Provenance
Private collection, Paris, until 1931. (Raphael Gerard, Paris) in 1932. (Besnard sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, March 1933); purchased by (Etienne Bignou, Paris) for Chester Dale, New York; bequest 1963 to NGA.[1] [1]Provenance according to Chester Dale files in NGA curatorial records.
Inscription
upper left: 1873; upper right: J J HENNER
NGA object ID 46507. Collection metadata is reproduced under CC0. This work is included because its NGA published-image record is marked open access; visitors should recheck the source record before substantial reuse.