About this work
A woman's face turns in three-quarter profile against a deep, near-shadowless ground. The composition is spare and immediate: her features, framed by traditional Middle Eastern dress, occupy almost the full height of the small panel. Tanner placed the woman against a dark background, a compositional trick that he learned from his teacher Thomas Eakins — and the device works exactly as it did for the Old Masters, isolating the face so that every gradation of skin tone and every nuance of light becomes the painting's entire drama. Executed in oil on wood, the panel measures just 14⅛ by 11¾ inches , giving it an intimacy closer to a devotional object than a formal portrait. The warm ochres and muted earth tones of the face hold their own against the darkness around them — a rarity within a body of work better known for its cool, nocturnal blues.
Tanner made many portraits while visiting the Holy Land, using them as studies for his religious paintings; in her traditional dress of the Middle East, this woman closely resembles the images of Christ's mother that Tanner later created, such as *Mary* from about 1914.
It was Rodman Wanamaker who financed Tanner's trips to the Middle East, believing that any serious painter of biblical scenes needed to see the environment firsthand.
The sketches and studies Tanner made during these journeys would inform his religious paintings for years to come. This small panel sits at the exact hinge between observation and vision — a real woman from a real journey, gathered and held until she could re-emerge as scripture.
On a wall, *Profile of a Woman's Head* rewards quiet rooms and close looking. Its compact scale suits a study, a bedroom, or any space where a single work is given full attention rather than competing in a gallery hang. The dark ground asks for controlled, directional light — a picture lamp or a warm sconce placed just above — so that the face comes forward the way Tanner intended. It speaks to collectors drawn to portraiture with psychological weight, to those who admire the crossroads of the academic and the spiritual, and to anyone who understands that a study, made quickly in the field, can carry more life than a finished canvas.
