1866

With Love (Con Amore)

American, active 1843 - c. 1903

In this romanticized genre scene, T. Henry Smith shows a young artist attempting to paint a portrait of an attractive woman. The studio space is carefully constructed to dramatize the encounter and is enriched by patterned carpeting, decorative fabrics, and marbleized walls. Limply holding his brush, the young man’s attention has shifted from working on his canvas to gazing lovingly at his model, as the plaster casts of a Venus, an infant cupid, and touching hands in the niche between the two figures reinforce the amorous nature of this encounter. Active largely in New York and Philadelphia, Smith exhibited widely, specializing in genre paintings that were often based on historical or literary themes.