Portrait of a Woman with Black Hat

Philip William May · 1884/1903

Medium

Colored crayon heightened with brush and white gouache, over graphite, on tan wove paper

Original size

30.3 × 22.8 cm (11 15/16 × 9 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Realism

Philip William May's "Portrait of a Woman with Black Hat" holds a quiet intimacy rarely seen in his work — where his public reputation rested on sharp caricature and the comedy of London street life, this portrait turns the same practiced eye toward stillness and dignity. May was one of late Victorian Britain's most celebrated illustrators, renowned above all for a radical economy of line that could fix a character in half a dozen strokes. Working here in colored crayon and white gouache over graphite on tan paper, he builds warmth and sculptural dimension through careful layering — a more contemplative mode that reveals the full reach of his draftsmanship beyond the comic press that made him famous. He spent several formative years in Sydney in the late 1880s working for The Bulletin, an experience widely credited with stripping his line work of Victorian decorativeness and sharpening his instinct for character. Our hand-painted oil reproduction translates May's delicate tonal range and the nuanced interplay of his mixed media into the richer, more tactile language of oil on canvas, preserving the portrait's understated confidence while giving it the physical presence to hold its own in any room.