Oil on Canvas
75 ½" x 38 ½" inches
Circa 1885

In addition to his prized landscapes painted at Giverny and other locations throughout Europe and the United States — including Cos Cob, Connecticut; Nantucket, Massachusetts; along the Delaware and Hudson Canal in Napanoch, New York; New Jersey; and southern Vermont — Theodore Robinson also produced a number of well-regarded genre scenes, often choosing the subjects of women at work or engaged in quiet contemplation. A particularly intriguing figure who repeatedly appears in Robinson's work is a model named Marie, the artist's "mysterious girlfriend." Though little is known about Marie, it has been speculated that Robinson may have secretly been married to her, adding mystique to the group of works in which she appears.

University of Rochester, New York, The Memorial Art Gallery, The Inaugural Exhibition, October 8 - October 29, 1913, p. 30, no. 106.

New York, Macbeth Gallery, A Collection of Paintings by Deceased American Artists, March 11 - March 30, 1914, no. 21, illustrated.

The Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, Albright Art Gallery, Catalogue of the Ninth Annual Exhibition of Selected Paintings by American Artists, May 16 - August 31, 1914, p. 18, no. 98.

Youngstown, Ohio, Mahoning Institute of Art, American Paintings Exhibited in the Assembly Room of the Reuben McMillan Free Library, May 4 - May 31, 1915, no. 24.

New York, Wickersham Gallery, Exhibition of Oils, Drawings and Watercolors, October 9 - October 30, 1965, no. 24 (as His Favorite Model).

New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Collects: Paintings, Watercolors, and Sculpture from Private Collections, July 3 - September 2, 1968, p. 23, no. 196.

Fort Worth, Texas, Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, American Paintings, Watercolors, and Drawings from the Collection of Rita and Daniel Fraad, May 24 - July 14, 1985, pp. 38-39, no. 17, illustrated.

Baltimore Museum of Art, In Monet's Light: Theodore Robinson at Giverny, October 17, 2004 - January 9, 2005 (second and third venues only); this exhibition later traveled to The Phoenix Art Museum, Arizona, February 6 - May 8, 2005; Wadsworth Athenaeum, Connecticut, June 4 - September 5, 2005.

The Macbeth Gallery, "Paintings by American Artists and Colonial Portraits," New York, circa 1914, pp. 80, 81, no. 193, illustrated.

John I.H. Baur, "Theodore Robinson: 1852-1896," Brooklyn, New York, 1946, pp. 26, 74, no. 193.

Linda Aryes and Jane Myers, "American Paintings, Watercolors, and Drawings from the Collection of Rita and Daniel Fraad," Fort Worth, Texas, Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, 1985, pp. 38-39, no. 17, illustrated in color.

In his brief yet wide-ranging career, Theodore Robinson established himself as a major figure in the early years of American impressionism, one of the few artists to work alongside Claude Monet.

Born in Irasburg, Vermont, Robinson moved to Wisconsin as a young boy, and enrolled at the Chicago Academy of Design before moving to Denver and then New York. After studying at New York's National Academy of Design and Art Students League for several years, Robinson, like other ambitious young artists of his day, sought out further instruction in Paris. Arriving there in 1876, he traveled and painted on the European continent during summers and sojourns. He came back to America for five years in late 1879.

Returning to France for an extended period in 1884, Robinson was among the first group of American artists to paint in the now-legendary art colony at Giverny, where he became one of only a handful of foreigners to forge a working relationship with impressionist master Claude Monet. Robinson's thoughtfully structured and delicately colored canvases earned him the opportunity to paint alongside Monet, not as student and teacher, but as colleagues who by all accounts enjoyed each other's company and painting techniques, exchanging influence and critiquing one another's work. This proximity to Monet made Robinson a leading figure in the Giverny colony, a topic that was explored in the 2005 exhibition organized by the Baltimore Museum of Art and its accompanying catalogue, In Monet's Light: Theodore Robinson at Giverny; the most recent major museum exhibition to focus on the artist's work.

Because Robinson died at age forty-four, not a great number of his works exist — perhaps 700 in all — making his legacy all the more impressive considering the brief period in which it was built.