Louis N. Kenton (1865–1947) was Eakins's brother-in-law, having married Elizabeth Macdowell (1858–1953), sister of Eakins's wife Susan, in 1889. Elizabeth studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, exhibited professionally, and traveled widely. Her marriage to Kenton was stormy and apparently brief, and very little is known of it, or of Kenton. The title associated with this portrait, "The Thinker," was at one time based upon an inscription on the reverse that apparently was placed there by Susan Eakins. Beginning in 1900, the portrait was widely exhibited and much admired. An oil study for the portrait is in the Farnsworth Library and Art Museum in Rockland, Maine.

• Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings

  Signature: [at lower right]: Eakins 1900
  
  Inscription: [on stretcher, probably by Susan Eakins]: "Thinker" T. Eakins

• Provenance

  The sitter's wife, Elizabeth Macdowell Kenton, Philadelphia, 1900–17

• Timeline of Art History (2000–present)
  Thematic Essays

  Thomas Eakins (1844–1916): Painting

  Timelines

  The United States and Canada, 1800–1900 A.D.

  The United States and Canada, 1900 A.D.–present
• MetPublications
  American Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vol. 2, A Catalogue of Works by Artists Born between 1816 and 1845 (1985)

  The American Wing: A Guide (1980)

  The American Wing at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (1985)

  "A Bicentennial Treasury: American Masterpieces from the Metropolitan": The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 33, no. 4 (Winter, 1975–1976) (1975–1976)

  Manet/Velázquez: The French Taste for Spanish Painting (2003)

  Masterpieces of American Painting in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (1986)

  The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vol. 9, The United States of America (1987)

  Thomas Eakins and The Metropolitan Museum of Art
  [adapted from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 52, no. 3 (Winter, 1994–1995)] (1994)

  A Walk Through The American Wing (2002)