Beauty Revealed

Beauty Revealed
Artist	Sarah Goodridge
Year	1828
Type	watercolor on ivory
Dimensions	6.7 cm × 8 cm (2.6 in × 3.1 in)
Location	Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, United States
Accession	2006.235.74

Beauty Revealed is an 1828 self-portrait by the American artist Sarah Goodridge. Depicting only the artist's bared breasts surrounded by white cloth, the 2.6-by-3.1-inch (6.7 by 8 cm) painting, originally backed with paper, is now in a modern frame. Goodridge, aged forty when she completed the watercolor portrait miniature on a piece of ivory, presented the breasts as youthful and individualized. She employed a frontal perspective that showed only the area from the collarbone to just underneath the breasts, thereby anonymizing the portrait.

Goodridge gave 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 painting was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2006. It has been read as a work of erotica, as well as an expression of the artist's confident sexuality.

Beauty Revealed is a self-portrait by Sarah Goodridge, depicting her bared breasts and pink nipples.^[1] Presented from a frontal perspective,^[2] the painting depicts the area from the bottom of the collarbone to the area just underneath the breasts.^[3] Individualized with a beauty mark on the left breast,^[4] the breasts presented in a gradation of color, which gives a three-dimensional effect.^[5] Although Goodridge was aged forty when she painted this miniature, according to art critic Chris Packard her breasts seem younger, with a "balance, paleness, and buoyancy" which is imbued in part by the harmony of light, color, and balance.^[5] The use of thin ivory allows some light to shine through, providing "a subtle yet ethereal glow."^[6] The breasts are framed by a swirl of pale cloth, which in parts reflects the light.^[7]

The 2.6-by-3.1-inch (6.7 by 8 cm) painting is set in a leather case with a hinged lid and two clasps;^[8] it had originally been installed on a paper backing which had the date "1828" on the reverse.^[9] The work is a watercolor painting on ivory,^[10] thin enough for light to shine through and thus allow the depicted breasts to "glow".^[5] This medium was common for American miniatures,^[11] and Goodridge was skilled in shaping and preparing ivory plaques for her portraiture.^[12] In this case, the medium also served as a simile for the flesh presented upon it,^[13] providing a tactile surface that could be touched in lieu of the depicted subject.^[a][4]

Left: Sarah Goodridge, the artist, in 1830. Right: Daniel Webster, the recipient, in 1825. Both paintings were created by Goodridge.

Beauty Revealed was completed during a period of popularity of portrait miniatures, a medium which had been introduced in the United States in the late 18th century. By the time Goodridge completed her self-portrait, miniatures were increasing in complexity and vibrance;^[11] the genre was particularly common among women artists, who were perceived as having the necessary "delicate sense of touch".^[14] The Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History describes Beauty Revealed as a play on the eye miniatures which were then popular as tokens of affection in England and France, but not common in the United States.^[15] Such miniatures allowed portraits of loved ones to be carried by their suitors without revealing the sitters' identities;^[16] similarly, by omitting her face, Goodridge ensured that she would not be associated with Beauty Revealed should it be discovered.^[8]

In the early 19th century, the nude was a rare subject for painters in the United States. Works that depicted the naked female form tended to present Native Americans or, borrowing from the European tradition, stories from Greek and Roman mythologies. Even these were controversial, and works by Adolf Ulrik Wertmüller, Rembrandt Peale, and John Vanderlyn had sparked outcry when exhibited in the early 19th century.^[2] Beauty Revealed and its focus on bared female breasts, thus, was unique.^[4] The title may be an allusion to the subject matter; cultural materials from the time often used the term beauty euphemistically to refer to breasts.^[17]

The artist, Sarah Goodridge, was a prolific Boston-based portrait miniature painter who had studied under Gilbert Stuart and Elkanah Tisdale.^[5] She had a long-term association with Daniel Webster, a politician who began services as senator from Massachusetts in 1827. Webster sent her more than forty letters between 1827 and 1851, and in time, his greetings to her became increasingly familiar; his last letters were addressed to "My dear, good friend", which was uncharacteristic of his usual writing style.^[9] She, meanwhile, painted him more than a dozen times, produced several portraits of his family, and lent him money regularly.^[b][18] Goodridge left her hometown of Boston to visit him in Washington, D.C. at least twice, once in 1828 after his first wife's death and again in 1841–42, when Webster was separated from his second wife.^[10]

Goodridge completed Beauty Revealed in 1828, potentially from looking at herself in a mirror,^[19] though the arrangement of the cloth suggests a lying or reclined position.^[20] Several works have been cited as possible inspirations, including John Vanderlyn's Ariadne Asleep on the Island of Naxos^[19] and Horatio Greenough's sculpture Venus Victrix.^[5] Goodridge sent her portrait to Webster when he was a new widower,^[21] and, based on its miniature format, it was likely intended for his eyes alone.^[5] The American art critic John Updike suggests that the artist intended it to offer herself to Webster; he writes that the bared breasts appear to say "We are yours for the taking, in all our ivory loveliness, with our tenderly stippled nipples".^[22] Ultimately, however, Webster married another, wealthier woman, who was more advantageous to his political ambitions.^[23]

After Webster's death, Beauty Revealed continued to be handed down by his family, together with another self-portrait Goodridge had sent to him. The politician's descendants held that Goodridge and Webster had been engaged. The painting was eventually auctioned through Christie's in 1981,^[16] with a list price of $15,000 (equivalent to $50,000 in 2023),^[24] and passed through the Alexander Gallery of New York later that year before being purchased by New York-based collectors Gloria and Richard Manney.^[25] The couple included Beauty Revealed in the exhibition "Tokens of Affection: The Portrait Miniature in America" in 1991, which toured to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met) in New York, the National Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C., and the Art Institute of Chicago.^[26]

Beauty Revealed was one of more than three hundred portrait miniatures collected by the couple, who gave it to the Met in 2006, as part of a gift/purchase arrangement for their collection. Carrie Rebora Barratt and Lori Zabar of the Met describe Goodridge's self-portrait as the most compelling of the "strange and wonderful" miniatures by minor artists in the collection.^[27] Two years later, Beauty Revealed was included in a retrospective, "The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions", which showcased works acquired under the tenure of retiring Met director Philippe de Montebello. Holland Cotter of The New York Times highlighted Goodridge's self-portrait, describing it as "remarkable".^[28] In 2009, authors Jane Kamensky and Jill Lepore drew inspiration from Beauty Revealed for their novel Blindspot, as well as other paintings, such as John Singleton Copley's A Boy with a Flying Squirrel.^[29] As of 2024^[update], the Met's website lists Beauty Revealed as not on view;^[30] watercolor miniatures such as this are rarely exhibited owing to their fragility and sensitivity to light.^[31]

Art historian Dale Johnson described Beauty Revealed as "strikingly realistic", demonstrative of Goodridge's ability to portray nuanced lights and shadows. He found the stippling and hatching used in creating the painting to be delicate.^[16] Writing in Antiques in 2012, Randall L. Holton and Charles A. Gilday said that the painting continued to present a self that evokes a "frisson of erotic possibility".^[19] In her biography of Goodridge, the art historian Elizabeth Kornhauser described the painting as simultaneously confrontational and erotic, arresting the viewer when seen in person.^[4] Discussing the painting, The Public Domain Review – an online journal dedicated to works in the public domain – described it as a "proto-sext" that is "so seductive, so intriguing, we cannot help but want to know the story behind it."^[8]

The critic Chris Packard wrote that Beauty Revealed served as a sort of visual synecdoche, representing the entirety of Goodridge through her breasts. As opposed to the "burdened" 1845 self-portrait and the non-eroticized one of 1830, he found Beauty Revealed to forefront Goodridge and her demand for attention. Arguing that the clothing surrounding her breasts served to indicate a performance (similar to the curtains of vaudeville), Packard described the viewer's eyes being focused on the breasts, while the rest of Goodridge's body was erased and abstracted.^[5] This, he stated, challenged the assumptions and stereotypes regarding the demure, homebound 19th-century woman.^[5] Similarly, the art curator Chelsea Nichols argues that Beauty Revealed exposed the "confidence and passions of a woman way ahead of her time, who has proudly embraced the eroticism of her body and role as cherished mistress", rather than burden herself with the expectations of a politician's wife.^[6]

• Media related to Beauty Revealed by Sarah Goodridge at Wikimedia Commons