Anne Page

Dennis Miller Bunker's 'Anne Page' (1887) depicts a figure possibly connected to the Shakespearean character of the same name, or may be a portrait of an actual person by that name from his Boston or New York social circle. Bunker's portraiture shows his developing skills as a figure painter alongside his better-known landscape and flower subjects. By 1887 he was increasingly under Sargent's influence, and his approach to the female portrait would reflect both his academic training and the liberating example of the older painter's alla prima method.

Bunker's portrait handling in 1887 shows increasing confidence with direct, painterly approach to the face and figure — Sargent's influence visible in the willingness to let the paint speak without excessive blending or correction. His sense of tonal relationship is acute, the portrait built through observation of how light falls across the features rather than through laboriously applied shadows and highlights. The background treatment focuses attention on the sitter.