Meet Cecilia Beaux, the savviest portrait artist to walk the Philly streets.

Beaux was a formidable female raised by a family full of them. When Cecilia’s widowed father went AWOL, jumping ship for a child-free life in France, she and her sister were left in the care of their grandmother and aunts. Beaux’s artistic pursuits were a long time coming. This was the Victorian era, after all: women were expected to don unwieldy petticoats and repress their sexuality, not enter the workforce. Beaux’s passion for artists like Rembrandt started her out on a path to fame and fortune, beginning with early employment as a scientific illustrator. Though Cecilia’s newfound career prospects gave her an excuse to ward off her countless marriage proposals, painstakingly drawing fossils reportedly hurt her solar plexus.

Luckily, Beaux’s abdominal woes were short-lived. She received an education at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, home of Thomas Eakins, who was fired after teaching a shocking curriculum of anatomy to the impressionable young ladies under his charge. At the time, live models and anatomy lessons were off-limits to academy women. After her time at PAFA, Beaux spurned a slew of lovesick suitors and moved to Europe. There, she studied under William-Adolphe Bouguereau. She was well on her way to a lifetime of being constantly compared to John Singer Sargent and Mary Cassatt.

Despite living in the bustling metropolis of Paris, Beaux did not descend into the life of sin and depravity forewarned by her Aunt Eliza. Instead, she matured into a capable portraitist with clients ranging from Georges Clemenceau to Edith Roosevelt. In 1895, she was hired as a PAFA instructor, a position that had never been filled by a woman. Seven years later, she sketched Teddy Roosevelt. Beaux’s career perhaps culminated when Eleanor Roosevelt declared her the most influential female American cultural icon, a title accompanied by the Chi Omega gold medal. Her only slip up? Old school painter Cecilia was convinced that the modernists would fade into obscurity.