Portrait of Frank Macdowell (Primary Title)
Thomas Eakins, American, 1844 - 1916 (Artist)
This compelling portrait depicts Frank MacDowell, the brother of Susan MacDowell Eakins, the artist’s wife and an accomplished painter herself. Capturing MacDowell’s English-style moustache, and positioning the figure in a bust-length turning pose, Eakins shows his keen understanding of the naturalism, chiaroscuro, and close-at-hand perspective seen in works by Caravaggio, Velázquez, and Manet, which the artist knew from his early travels and studies in France and Spain.
Comparison with Eakins’s contemporary photographs of the sitter shows that this portrait is an accurate likeness but enhances/introduces/achieves a psychological effect by way of the deep-set eyes, three-quarters turning pose, and emergence from darkness. As recent research has demonstrated that Eakins relied on photographs in composing his paintings, he may well have used photographs in producing Portrait of Frank MacDowell.
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