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Standing woman in a long blue satin gown with white lace, holding a rose beside a table strewn with pearls

We Both Must Fade (Mrs. Fithian)

Lilly Martin Spencer, 1869

What you see

Mrs. Fithian is shown full length, standing at the center in a full blue satin gown draped in white lace and pearls. She holds a small rose in her right hand and rests her left on a table, beside an open jewel box spilling a string of pearls. She looks to the left, where a lace curtain hangs.

Almost everything else is dark brown and reddish, so the blue of the gown seems to glow. The satin has cool highlights, and the lace is painted in careful detail. Seek out the pink petals fallen on the dress and the floor, and the tip of a white shoe peeking out beneath the skirt.

About Lilly Martin Spencer

Lilly Martin Spencer was born in England in 1822, grew up on a farm in Ohio and became one of the most popular and widely reproduced women painters in mid-nineteenth-century America. Her lively, often humorous scenes of family life, which sometimes poked fun at husbands, were sold widely as lithographs. Unusually for her time, she was the family breadwinner while her husband ran the household, and she kept painting until her death at nearly eighty.

All 10 works by Lilly Martin Spencer

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