Cecilia Beaux’s Dorothea and Francesca is a portrait of her second family, the Gilders.

Beaux captures the Gilder sisters dancing during a lesson. No one but someone close to the family could capture this intimate moment, and Beaux was lucky to count herself in their inner circle. Helena de Kay and Richard Watson Gilder were the who’s-who of the New York art scene. Richard was a celebrated poet and editor of The Century Magazine, at the time a major literary magazine. His wife, Helena, was also a painter. It was a boon for Beaux to become close to this influential couple. The Gilders were great for networking, and they introduced Beaux to Theodore Roosevelt, Henry James, Walt Whitman, and Oscar Wilde, among other important political, literary and art world superstars. Cecilia would also take on Roosevelt’s wife and child as clients. Having friends in high-society pays off.

This portrait is unique in that it captures the subjects mid-motion, instead of seated or posed. Instead, the girls look down at their feet, focusing on learning the steps of their dance. The blurry effect given to the pair through color blending and loose brushwork further gives the illusion bodies in motion. This can be seen best in the treatment of the hair of the older sister, Dorothea, which seems to whoosh past her cheek.

Beaux would go on to paint several pictures of the Gilder family throughout their lives, and was particularly fond of Dorothea as a model. Though she met her as a girl, and was almost 30 years her senior, the two developed an extremely close bond as Dorothea reached adulthood. It is speculated that they had a romantic relationship that lasted for several years. This claim is supported by a large archive of written correspondence between the two women, which you can read online via the Smithsonian Archives of American Art to make up your own mind. 

Though Beaux's romantic involvement with Dorothea presumably ended when the eldest Gilder daughter married, the artist remained close to the family. There is even a portrait of Helena de Kay mourning her recently deceased husband in the collection of the Met. This somber painting is inscribed to Rosamond, the Gilders' youngest daughter, who doesn't make an appearance in this dance class.