Who Is the Mysterious Beautiful Lady in the Portrait?

The mysterious beautiful lady portrait. An oil painting on canvas was painted by Robert Whitmore possibly in the 1920s of a woman with short dark hair and rosy cheeks.

I’m not known for having empty spaces on the walls in my home. I collect artwork and seem to hang everything I love. So my walls are decorative and joyful. But when the perfect painting just happens to fall in my lap, I will quickly go to task rearranging and making room for it. One afternoon I was looking on an online auction site just for fun ….dangerous I know…..but it’s a site I really enjoy browsing….and there she was…..so absolutely lovely. The mysterious beautiful lady portrait.

The auction site is called Everything But The House (EBTH) and they have antiques, vintage items, as well as new items. But, everything they sell is of amazing quality and if you don’t end up in a bidding war, you’ll end up getting a good deal. After multiple bids, I finally became the official winner! It was not a bargain (just over $200)…or so I thought at the time, but I just had to have her!

A vintage painting of a mysterious beautiful lady. Close up of her face. Oil painting on canvas possibly from the 1920s. Painted by Robert Whitmore.

She was an oil painting on a frayed canvas. Unfinished, unstretched, unframed, and unloved by the looks of it. There was paint loss, stains, and marks throughout. BUT despite all that, she was speaking to me. Her kind familiar face was warm and happy…I just had to have her.

A Little About the Artist

It was painted by an Ohio artist named Robert Whitmore who was born in 1890 in Dayton. He attended the Art Institute of Chicago and later studied at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. He served in World War I and after the war, in the 1920’s, he became a teacher at the Art Academy of Dayton. Later on he had a long career as an art professor at Antioch College. You can find his paintings online for $3,000 or so…so maybe we did get a decent deal after all. Here’s a post-impressionist painting he did in 1923 that is at the Dayton Art Institute.

Oil painting on canvas by Robert Whitmore painted in 1923. A white home with green tall trees and blue shadows of the trees on the side of the house that match the blue sky.

We love our portrait painting. It’s clearly painted by a well trained artist who has oodles of talent. We like the colors, the age of the painting, and the fact that it is distressed, which gives it even more character. It hangs in our living room now, and it’s a very fragile piece. Tacked to a wood frame, the worn look and exposed edges show a lot of uniqueness… we love it!

Who is she?… This Mysterious Beautiful Lady

We did some research but were unable to find out her real identity. However, we were not dismayed, because after she was hanging on our living room wall for nearly a month, it dawned on us. The mystery lady we loved so much reminded us of our Grandma Ann….in her younger years of course. Ann was my husband’s mother. While it’s not the spitting image of her, the painting has many similar characteristics, and now we can’t look at it without being reminded of her. So who is this mysterious lady in the portrait? It doesn’t matter really, as we named her Ann, after my husband’s mother who passed away a few months after we bought the painting.

Photo of a woman with short dark hair taken in the 1940s.

I want to encourage you to fill your walls…..buy what you LOVE! It’s an essential element in making your home beautiful and reflecting your style. Sometimes people don’t know where to go for art, or what to hang….they really do not trust themselves. You can trust your instincts, buy what looks good to you…what lifts your mood. Antique stores, online sites (ETSY, EBTH) and talented family members can all be great resources. Sometimes I buy a piece of art because it reminds me of a place, or favorite memory, maybe something that hung in my Great Aunt’s house. But sometimes there’s just a connection….it speaks to me. I like it, and IT MAKES ME SMILE!!!