Mrs. Charles S. Carstairs

Carstairs, Elizabeth Stebbins
Carstairs, Charles Stewart Mrs.

American, died 1949

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A man stands with one arm resting over the back of a chestnut-brown horse as two women approach the animal in this horizontal portrait painting set in a landscape. The people have pale skin, dark eyes, and ash-brown or gray hair. At the center of the composition, the cleanshaven man stands with his body angled to our left as he looks off in that direction. He has a rounded nose, a dimple in his slight double chin, and he smiles faintly. A black tricorn hat sits on his gray hair, which curls up over his ears. His uniform has a long, pearl-white vest over a high, bright-white collar. His knee-length red coat is open, and the side closer to us is tucked back behind a sword hanging on that hip. The coat is lined with navy blue and gold down the front and around the cuff we see. The vest and coat have gold-colored buttons, and a gloved hand rests on the scabbard by his side. He wears white britches and knee-high, black boots with spurs. One ankle crosses in front of the other as he leans gently against the horse. The animal bends one back leg to rest along the front edge of its hoof as it reaches its muzzle forward, toward the women to our left. One woman sits in a wood armchair in front of the horse as she holds some pink flowers to the animal’s nose. She has a bumped nose, dark brows, and her delicate, pale pink lips are parted. Her hair is teased high and covered at the back with a white cloth. A voluminous, pearl-white, hooded shawl covers all of her upper body except the proffered hand. The lace edge of the white skirt puddles on the dirt ground. Behind her, the second woman leans over her crossed forearms, which rest on the back of the chair. This second woman has large eyes and delicate features. The top of her hair is also covered with a cloth, and she wears a black choker and a black apron over a sapphire-blue and white dress. A thick-trunked tree behind the women fills the left half of the composition, and its dark canopy reaches almost across the top half of the painting. A few plants line the far side of the dirt ground to our right. An expanse of silvery water curves like a C around a rocky promontory in the distance, also to our right. Smoke-gray mountains, hazy in the distance, stretch across the horizon, which comes about a third of the way up the composition. Some steel-gray and pale peach clouds cover much of the ice-blue sky.
George Stubbs, Captain Samuel Sharpe Pocklington with His Wife, Pleasance, and possibly His Sister, Frances, 1769, oil on canvas, Gift of Mrs. Charles S. Carstairs in memory of her husband, Charles Stewart Carstairs, 1952.9.4

Captain Samuel Sharpe Pocklington with His Wife, Pleasance, and possibly His Sister, Frances

George Stubbs · 1769 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1952.9.4

Sir William Orpen, Mrs. Charles S. Carstairs, 1914, oil on canvas, Gift of Mrs. Charles S. Carstairs, 1952.9.3

Mrs. Charles S. Carstairs

Sir William Orpen · 1914 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1952.9.3

Shown from the lap up, two women with pale skin and dark hair pulled up and back, wearing white dresses with baby-blue polka dots, sit on a couch in this horizontal portrait painting. Both women have straight, dark brows, delicate noses, smooth skin, and their small, rose-pink mouths are closed. Wispy bangs brush their foreheads, and their hair is piled high with long ringlets falling down their backs. Both wear black ribbons like chokers around their necks. Their dresses have high necks with ruffles along the necklines, ruffles at the wrists, and are gathered under the bust. They sit angled in toward each other. The woman on our left has black hair, and she looks down and to our right with dark eyes. She wears a gold ring with a dark, oval stone on one hand resting in her lap. The other woman has chestnut-brown hair and looks down and off to our left with ice-blue eyes. She holds an open fan in her hands in her lap. The fabric on the couch has vertical white and lilac-purple stripes, and is overlaid with a pattern of pink flowers and green leaves. A framed picture hanging on the bone-white wall behind the women shows an arched painting against a sky-blue background. A few spiky leaves from a houseplant are cut off by the left edge of the painting. The portrait is loosely painted throughout, especially in the couch and background. The artist signed the painting in the upper right corner, “Berthe Morisot.”
Berthe Morisot, The Sisters, 1869, oil on canvas, Gift of Mrs. Charles S. Carstairs, 1952.9.2

The Sisters

Berthe Morisot · 1869 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1952.9.2

Edouard Manet, Portrait of a Lady, c. 1879, oil on wood, Gift of Mrs. Charles S. Carstairs, 1952.9.1

Portrait of a Lady

Edouard Manet · c. 1879 · oil on wood ·  Accession ID  1952.9.1