1899 (ca.), Edmund Charles Tarbell, Across the Room -- Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York)
From the museum label: The Boston Impressionist Tarbell's canvas recalls Johannes Vermeer's portrayals of quiet rooms occupied by solitary women. Its asymmetrical composition was inspired by Edgar Degas, James McNeill Whistler, and Japanese woodblock prints. The Chinese porcelain jar and Japanese screen demonstrate Tarbell's esteem for Asian art and suggest Boston's connection to the China trade. Thus, in many ways, the painting echoes the widespread belief—articulated by the novelist Henry James in 1867—that Americans could "deal freely with forms of civilization not our own, can pick and choose and assimilate and in short ... claim our property wherever we find it."
1899 (ca.), Edmund Charles Tarbell, Across the Room -- Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York)
From the museum label: The Boston Impressionist Tarbell's canvas recalls Johannes Vermeer's portrayals of quiet rooms occupied by solitary women. Its asymmetrical composition was inspired by Edgar Degas, James McNeill Whistler, and Japanese woodblock prints. The Chinese porcelain jar and Japanese screen demonstrate Tarbell's esteem for Asian art and suggest Boston's connection to the China trade. Thus, in many ways, the painting echoes the widespread belief—articulated by the novelist Henry James in 1867—that Americans could "deal freely with forms of civilization not our own, can pick and choose and assimilate and in short ... claim our property wherever we find it."