Clara L. White as a Child (1885–86): Art, History and Details

Clara L. White as a Child (1885–86) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Virtuoso painting is possible on this very intimate scale, yielding an image that lies on the border between the worlds of photography and the painted miniature. Because the subject’s name and life dates were written on the back, we have found out that White (1883–1987), who never married, spent her life in the vicinity of Winchester, Connecticut, and worked at least into her late sixties as a stenographer and later, secretary to the principal of a school.

Object facts

• Title: Clara L. White as a Child
• Date: 1885–86
• Culture: America
• Type: Photograph
• Technique: Matte collodion with hand-applied crayon and paint
• Dimensions: Image: 11.4 x 8.6 cm (4 1/2 x 3 3/8 in.); Framed: 15.4 x 12.9 x 1.8 cm (6 1/16 x 5 1/16 x 11/16 in.)
• Collection: PH - American 19th Century
• Department: Photography
• Accession number: 2024.17

A detail from the museum

There is a black-and-white photograph underneath all the paint here.

Collection credit

Gift of Nina Rosenblum and Lisa Rosenblum

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.