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Portrait bust of Franklina Bartlett (Nee Gray). This piece was commissioned during the Hewes family Grand Tour (1875-1877) while the family was in Italy. In a letter to her then fiancé William, dated October 22 1875, Franklina writes:
"Monday morning I got up at six o'clock (think of it!) & went in a pouring rain to a studio to sit for a bust in Alabaster, --a notion of Mr. Hewes. After sitting for three hours watching the process of bringing a head out of a lump of clay I went to the Alabaster store to help Mr. Hewes select his two or three hundred dollars worth of the beautiful white stuff."Label
From Franklina's letter to William Bartlett on November 5, 1876:
"You ask what has become of my bust cut in Alabaster. My dear it is hideous! You would never care to see it but once. It is impossible for me to have a good likeness. In reference to one of the Naples pictures which I sent Mrs. Burnham, she says “It looks a little like you.”"
