Floretta (Portrait of Agnes Doggett),

1914

A member of the Boston School of Impressionists, Hale focused on capturing the diffusion of natural light in domestic interior scenes and portraits of women in elaborate dress. Here the sitter is Agnes Doggett, a neighbor who frequently posed as a model for Hale—at twenty-five cents an hour, to help defray the costs of her college education. As the original title, Floretta, denotes, the floral motif of the wallpaper is transposed onto the young woman, whose features emerge from amid petal-like ruffles at her collar and sleeve. This ethereal drawing displays the distinctive technique Hale developed to create an effect similar to silverpoint. Having used sandpaper to file her charcoal sticks to fine points, Hale drew in small vertical stitches, a technique that fellow artist