Susanna Truax

The Gansevoort Limner (Possibly Pieter Vanderlyn)

National Gallery of Art

A pale-skinned girl wearing a striped dress and holding up a spoon and a rose looks out at us in this vertical portrait painting. Her body faces us, and her head turns lightly to the left. She has a wide, square face with large, dark eyes, flushed cheeks, and her dark pink lips curve in a slight smile. Her dark brown hair is parted in the middle and gathered at the nape of her neck. A thick curl drapes over one shoulder. Her dress has a rounded, lace-edged neckline, a tightly fitting bodice, long, and loose sleeves gathered at the elbows over a transparent white under-shirt. The ankle-length skirt flares from the waist, and the dress is vertically striped in apple red, forest and laurel green, and white. She wears a dangling pearl earring in the ear we can see, and her gold necklace has a horizontal, oval, gold plaque at the center. Her shoes have low heels and are striped red and white to either side of a gray band that runs back from the pointed toes along the shank of the shoe. The girl holds a spoon in her raised right hand, to our left, with what appears to be a sugar cube on it. Her other elbow is bent so she holds a pink rose at her waist with that hand. To the left, a small round wooden table holds a white teapot with a black handle and lid finial, a teacup and saucer, and a dish of what appears to be sugar cubes or sweets. The wall behind the young woman is dark pine green, and the floor is tan. A window over one shoulder, in the upper right quadrant of the painting, shows a pink, white, and blue sunset sky over a low band of dark green trees. Text painted in red at the upper left reads, “Susanna Truax, Gebooren den 8 1726, Geschilderd Maart, 173.” The final number looks like it could be a 0 or a 9.