Portrait of Henriette Wyeth

While N. C. Wyeth did several formal portraits as commissions (see Portrait of Philip Burnet, 2006.1), for his liveliest portraits he used his family (or himself) as models. This is the fifteen-year-old Henriette Wyeth; the fanciful floral background and the book held casually in her lap speak to her interests in floral painting and reading. Wyeth sent the portrait to an exhibition sponsored by the Wilmington Society of the Fine Arts in April 1924, where the local press commented on the "haunting color background for the portrait" (Wilmington, DE, Morning News, April 1, 1924, p. 4).

The portrait later appeared on the cover of The Ladies Home Journal (November 1924). On the editor's page, Barton Currie made only a brief reference to the portrait in the following: "Of all the artists we know of, Wyeth is one of the most liberally supplied with models in his own family. A beautiful wife and four beautiful children, the children ranging in age from five to fifteen, all very different in type, would seem to be the ideal for a painter's household. The girl on our November cover is one of the four, the only Wyeth so far to develop her father's great talent."