Eleanor Hardy Bunker

Before The Met began to purchase contemporary American art in the early twentieth century, New Movement artists attracted the institution’s notice by gifting donations. Produced just before Bunker’s premature death, this evocative portrait of his wife, Eleanor (1869–1953), is one of several American paintings given to the Museum to honor an artist during the late nineteenth century. The sitter appears strongly illuminated against a dark background, her laurel crown alluding to classical ideals. Sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens and architects Stanford White, who designed this striking frame, and Charles A. Platt, who later married Eleanor Bunker, organized a subscription effort through the Society of American Artists to acquire the painting for the Museum.