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Edith and Ethel Roosevelt

Edith and Ethel Roosevelt

Hagner remembered the portrait Cecilia Beaux made of Edith Roosevelt (1905) with her daughter Ethel at the White House: “Ethel now has it hanging in her drawing room at Oyster Bay. In the picture she was sitting beside her mother. Her figure is almost like a sketch, while Mrs. Roosevelt’s is a finished portrait. Ted’s illness and the many other interruptions made it very hard for Mrs. Roosevelt to have the requisite number of sittings. Poor Miss Beaux was distracted, and Miss Bessie Kean, sister of the Senator, being about the same figure as Mrs. Roosevelt, frequently came to the White House and posed in Mrs. Roosevelt’s gown, which helped speed the good work.”

Credit
Courtesy of Sarah Chapman