Mrs Abby Marion Deering Howe

Mrs Abby Marion Deering Howe was an American subject whom Zorn painted in 1900, now preserved in the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm — a notable case of an American sitter's portrait returning to the Swedish national collection. Zorn's American portraits were numerous and varied: he painted industrialists, politicians, socialites, and their wives during his successful American tours. Mrs Howe's portrait demonstrates the social range of his American clientele, while its presence in the Nationalmuseum reflects Swedish institutional recognition of Zorn's American work as part of his broader national contribution.

Society portraits of women required Zorn to manage the interplay between the figure and specific props — dress, jewellery, and hair signifying social position as clearly as any official insignia. His brushwork in these passages shows controlled variation, with the face receiving the most concentrated sustained attention.