Portrait of a young girl, c. 1920
Oil on canvas Charles Webster Hawthrone, American, 1872–1930 Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Aldis (P-084-80)
Charles Hawthorne, a student of William Merritt Chase (1849–1916), built the image of a young girl with impressionistic brushstrokes in a series of similar color tones. Though the young girl’s identity is unknown, her immediacy and charm foretell the illustrations by Hawthorne’s student, Norman Rockwell (1894–1978). Hawthorne spent time from 1923 to 1930 at Laurelton Hall serving as an art advisor for the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation. His painting, The Fountain, made there is in the Morse’s Laurelton Hall Dining Room gallery.