As a young painter trained at the Academy in Paris in the post-Revolution years, Vanderlyn made a living both drawing and painting portraits of the American community in France. Anna Church Strobel was the daughter of the first American minister to Portugal and the wife of Daniel Strobel, Jr., an American diplomat in France. In this exquisitely wrought Neoclassical portrait—comparable to those of the young Ingres at this time—Vanderlyn deliberately contrasted the curvilinear forms and more direct appeal of Anna and son George with the formality and angularity that characterizes the portrayal of Daniel Strobel (17.134.1).

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