Mrs. Leonard Lewisohn (Rosalie Jacobs)

Painted in 1901, this portrait of Rosalie Jacobs Lewisohn — wife of Leonard Lewisohn, whose portrait Carolus-Duran had painted two years earlier — belongs to the pair of companion portraits through which the French master documented one of New York's prominent German-Jewish families at the turn of the century. Rosalie Jacobs was a significant figure in New York philanthropic and social life, and her portrait would have been displayed alongside her husband's as a statement of family identity and social arrival. The New-York Historical Society's pairing of the two portraits provides a complete family document. The female portrait format in Carolus-Duran's practice typically allowed for more elaborate costume and setting than the male business portrait, and Mrs. Lewisohn's portrait likely incorporated the jewelry, dress, and interior furnishings through which wealthy American women of this era constructed their public social identities. Carolus-Duran had by 1901 almost forty years of experience navigating the particular demands of female portraiture — the balance between individual character and social aspirations of the sitter.

The female portrait format gave Carolus-Duran's technique its most elaborate challenges: complex fabrics, jewelry, coiffure, and the social expectations of sitters who understood that their portrait would function as a public document of their status. His alla prima method had by 1901 been refined over decades to handle these demands with apparent ease, the complex surfaces of gown and jewelry rendered with confident brevity. The face, as always in his portraits, carries the psychological weight.