Woman before the Mirror

Ellen Emmet Rand worked principally as a portraitist, but Woman before the Mirror is instead a dynamic figure study, showcasing the artist’s assured brushwork and vibrant palette. Executed in 1925, the painting demonstrates Rand’s interest in elements both old and new: the woman wears 19th-century dress, rendered in a painterly realism recalling Spanish Baroque artist Diego Velázquez, yet her assertive self-presentation feels decidedly modern. A trailblazer herself, Rand trained in New York and then with American sculptor and painter Frederick MacMonnies in Paris in the 1890s. She supported her family from her student years onward, receiving considerable acclaim in her day as a professional artist.