Portrait of Walter S. Macdowell

Walter S. Macdowell was a Philadelphia artist married to Susan Macdowell, who became Eakins's wife. This portrait of 1904, now in the Taubman Museum of Art, captures his brother-in-law in the mature phase of Eakins's portraiture. The family connection gives the work a different intimacy than most of Eakins's commissioned or offered portraits — this was someone he knew closely, seen over many years, and the resulting image may carry accumulated familiarity in its directness and psychological reach. The Taubman Museum of Art in Roanoke, Virginia, is one of several regional American institutions that holds significant Eakins portraits.

Eakins approaches familiar subjects with no less rigour than strangers — his method of building the face from tonal observation did not relax for family members. Long familiarity with a face might have allowed him to go further in psychological penetration, knowing the sitter's characteristic expressions and habitual inner states.