Summer Evening, 1886
Oil on canvas, 12 1/8 x 20 3/8”
Signed and dated lower left
Is the plant the lady’s alter ego, cultivated and protected, as she is, but confined to an unnatural setting? American women were often associated with flowers in the late 19th century. Impressionists also painted them at open windows or on porches, where they are the most torn between the opposing domains of home and nature.
Hassam would explore this theme further in two series of paintings, one set in Cos Cob, the other in New York City. This painting was probably done at the Isles of Shoals in New Hampshire. Hassam visited poet Celia Thaxter and her circle of artists there for the first time in 1886.