Portrait of Mrs. Louise Carleton Putnam, 1902

Provenance

The artist

Mrs. Louise Carleton Putnam, acquired from above, 1902

Private collection, California, by descent from above

Sale, Christie’s, Los Angeles, California, April 28, 2004, lot 39, from above

Private collection, Montclair, New Jersey, acquired from above

Questroyal Fine Art, LLC, New York, New York, acquired from above, 2020

Private collection, Massachusetts, acquired from above, 2020

Literature

Geoffrey K. Fleming, Irving Ramsay Wiles, N.A. 1861–1948, Portraits and Pictures, 1899–1948 (Southold, NY: Southold Historical Society, 2010), 90.

Related Work

Miss Julia Marlowe, 1901, oil on canvas, 74¼ x 55¼ inches, inscribed, signed, and dated upper left: Miss Julia Marlowe / Irving R. Wiles 1901; inscribed, dated, and signed lower left: Copyright 1901 / by Irving Ramsay Wiles; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

Note

The Putnam family was descended from the Revolutionary War hero Israel Putnam, who famously remarked “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes!” Mrs. Putnam’s son would become Chairman of the Board of Delta Airlines. This portrait bears some stylistic resemblance to Wiles’s celebrated portrait of the actress Julia Marlowe, painted the year before.