Article
Newsletter: Spring 1986
Signed and dated 1872, At the Window shows a young woman seated in a darkened interior . A window behind her admits bright daylight, which strongly models her facial features and upper body in the otherwise dark interior. The brilliantly illuminated window frame, a beautifully painted detail, contrasts with the potted plants on the sill, seen a contre-jour. The appealing simplicity of this domestic scene and the subtlety of the artist's study of the effects of Iight are sure to endear this painting to visitors. Moreover, the dreamy attitude of the young woman and the suggestion of a portrait give rise to speculation on some of the mysteries surrounding Homer's personal life.
Lloyd Goodrich, Director Emeritus of the Whitney Museum of American Art and the leading authority on Winslow Homer, has written of the subject of At the Window: "I notice that the young lady wears a wedding ring, and since Homer never married, she can't be one of the mythical maidens whom fiction-prone biographers of Homer have tried to promote as the love of his life. The same young woman, in the same dress, standing by the same window, appears in the oil Reverie. . . also dated 1872; . . . also in the oil Morning Glories; . . . and probably other similar paintings of 1872 and 1873. Who she was, I have found no clue."
Lloyd Goodrich, Director Emeritus of the Whitney Museum of American Art and the leading authority on Winslow Homer, has written of the subject of At the Window: "I notice that the young lady wears a wedding ring, and since Homer never married, she can't be one of the mythical maidens whom fiction-prone biographers of Homer have tried to promote as the love of his life. The same young woman, in the same dress, standing by the same window, appears in the oil Reverie. . . also dated 1872; . . . also in the oil Morning Glories; . . . and probably other similar paintings of 1872 and 1873. Who she was, I have found no clue."
