Oil on canvas, signed and inscribed "To Miss Dora Wilbourn" at lower left, inscribed and dated "Paris 1877" at lower right, presented in a period ebonized frame with gilt liner.

Stretcher size 14 x 10 3/4 in.; Frame dimensions 21 3/4 x 18 3/4 in.

Charles Sprague Pearce was born in Boston. His family was wealthy and his parents encouraged his interests in the arts. In 1873, after working for his father's Chinese imports business, Pearce moved to Paris to study with Léon Bonnat. He became an active figure in expat American art circles. He was particularly drawn to the "exotic other" - from his travels through Egypt and Algeria, to his exposure to the arts of the East.

Pearce exhibited frequently at the Salons and received numerous commissions, including an invitation to paint murals for the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. His paintings are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Theodora "Dora" Wilbour was born in New York. Her father was an American journalist and famous Egyptologist, who made a fortune through his involvement with Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall. After Tweed's downfall, Wilbour fled to Paris with his family. His eldest daughter, Evangeline Wilbour, became a noted author and intellectual who married the American painter and muralist Edwin Howland Blashfield in 1881. Blashfield was a student at Léon Bonnat's atelier, alongside Charles Sprague Pearce.

Two horizontal tears to canvas; area of paint loss near sitter's bust; small surface abrasion below "D" in inscription; stretcher marks and allover craquelure; surface grime; chipping and later retouch to frame.