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The sitter of this painting is Clara Janney Mather, one of Eakins's pupils. Two sketches showing her standing and wearing a black dress were to serve as preparatory studies for a full portrait that was in fact never painted. Eakins painted this portrait instead.
After his return to the United States in 1872 from Paris, where he attended the art classes of Gérôme, Eakins became one of his country's leading Realist artists.
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