A Lady Playing the Violoncello

After the turn of the century, Dewing developed a theme he would render in endless variations: a woman alone in a quiet, uncluttered room. Like James McNeill Whistler, Dewing selected a color scheme for each painting and carefully arranged the elements of the composition to create a contemplative mood. To emphasize the formal qualities of the paintings, he gave them titles that refer to the aestheic props in the pictures--yellow tulips, a mirror, a carnation--as often as to the figures, who might otherwise be considered the subject. Dewing's women sometimes appear disengaged from their pursuits, apparently bored with their lives of leisure. The painting themselves became symbols of affluence in America's gilded age.