Michael Dahl, Portrait of a Lady, About 1700. Oil paint on canvas; 95 × 58 in. (241.3 × 147.3 cm). Gift of the Berger Collection Educational Trust, 2020.6

image height: 95 in, 241.3000 cm; image width: 58 in, 147.3200 cm; frame height: 101 3/4 in, 258.445 cm; frame width: 64 5/8 in, 164.1475 cm

European and American Art Before 1900

European Painting and Sculpture before 1900

By the late 1600s, England was actively trading with Asia, as this portrait reveals. The sitter wears a loose-fitting dress called an open robe that was introduced from Asia in the 1670s during the reign of King Charles II. The style became the fashion choice for informal portraiture for more than a hundred years. Another exotic detail: the parrot, perched on a tree branch at top left, signaling her family’s likely involvement in international trade.
 

The Beechwood Museum, no. 12 (according to an inscription on the stretcher); sale, Sotheby’s, New York, March 27, 1987, lot 113; sale, Christie’s, New York, January 31, 1997, lot 116; from which acquired by the Berger Collection Educational Trust; gifted to the Denver Art Museum, 2020. Provenance research is on-going at the Denver Art Museum and we will post information as it becomes available. Please e-mail provenance@denverartmuseum.org, if you have questions, or if you have additional information to share with us.