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Lady with an Arrow

American Art

Unlike the other paintings in this gallery, this work is not a portrait. Instead, it is a picture type known as an allegory, or symbolic figure. The arrow the woman holds refers to the fortunes of love.

It was more common to find a variety of painted subjects in Dutch colonial homes in New York and the Hudson Valley than in other colonial households. This wide-ranging taste was inspired by Dutch cultural traditions, which for two centuries had prized the production and display of landscapes, still lifes, and allegories, as well as portraiture.
CULTURE American
MEDIUM Oil on wood panel
DATES ca. 1715
DIMENSIONS 26 3/8 × 21 1/16 in. (67 × 53.5 cm) frame: 33 1/2 × 28 1/4 × 3 in. (85.1 × 71.8 × 7.6 cm)
COLLECTIONS American Art
ACCESSION NUMBER 64.89.1
CREDIT LINE Purchased with funds given by anonymous donors and the Dick S. Ramsay Fund
MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view
RECORD COMPLETENESS
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