Portrait of Selina (Quin) Markham

Art Historical Context

Created in 1850, Elizabeth Murray’s *Portrait of Selina (Quin) Markham* offers an intimate glimpse into mid-nineteenth-century portraiture. Executed in black and colored chalks with delicate touches of white gouache on gray paper, the drawing measures just 10 by 7 inches, suggesting it was intended for private viewing rather than public display. The sitter, Selina Quin Markham, is presented with quiet dignity, her features softly modeled against the muted paper support. Murray’s choice of fabricated chalks allowed her to blend precise line work with subtle passages of color and tone, a technique well suited to capturing both likeness and personality. The addition of white gouache highlights brings luminosity to the face and clothing, demonstrating the artist’s skill in working on colored grounds. Such drawings occupied an important place between finished oil portraits and quick sketches, offering sitters an elegant yet accessible record of their appearance. Housed today in the Prints and Drawings department of the Art Institute of Chicago, the work exemplifies the refined draftsmanship prized in Victorian-era Britain and America. Its modest scale and sensitive handling invite viewers to appreciate the quiet artistry involved in rendering a single individual with warmth and restraint.

About the Artist

Elizabeth Murray · 1830–1900

Elizabeth Murray (1940–2007) was a pioneering American painter whose exuberant, sculptural canvases redefined the boundaries of abstraction in the late 20th century. Born on September 6, 1940, in Chicago to Irish-Catholic parents—a lawyer father and a mother who aspired to commercial art—she showed an early passion for drawing cartoons, nurtured by her mother's encouragement and high school art te...