Title: Beauty Revealed
Description: Beauty Revealed is an 1828 self-portrait by Sarah Goodridge, painted in miniature with watercolors on a piece of ivory. Depicting the artist's bared breasts surrounded by pale cloth, the 6.7-by-8-centimetre (2.6 by 3.1 in) painting – originally on a paper backing – is set in a modern case. Goodridge, aged forty when she completed the miniature, depicts breasts which appear imbued with a "balance, paleness, and buoyancy" by the harmony of light, color, and balance. The surrounding cloth draws the viewer to focus on them, leading to the body being "erased". Goodridge gifted the portrait to statesman Daniel Webster, who was a frequent subject and possibly a lover, following the death of his wife; she may have intended to provoke him into marrying her. Although Webster married someone else, his family held onto the portrait until the 1980s, when it was auctioned at Christie's and acquired by Gloria and Richard Manney in 1981. The couple gifted/sold their collection of miniatures, including Beauty Revealed, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2006.
Author(s): Goodridge, Sarah