Portrait of an Elegant Lady

Art Historical Context

Created around the mid-eighteenth century, *Portrait of an Elegant Lady* captures the refined sensibilities of its time through the delicate medium of pastel. Dutch-born artist Frans van der Mijn, who worked extensively in England, specialized in intimate portraits that appealed to an emerging class of fashionable sitters. Executed on blue-gray paper, the drawing uses the sheet’s cool mid-tone to heighten the luminosity of the sitter’s skin and the soft folds of her costume, a technique that allowed artists to achieve subtle gradations of light and shadow with remarkable speed and economy. Pa...