My Museum Date . . .

My Museum Date Rosina Ferrara of Capri

surprised me in the Portland (Maine) Museum of Art
after traveling from Denver, where she now lives,
so I painted her, like so many artists have,
seen on January 2, 2015 and sketched on January 4, 2015
7" x 5", Winsor & Newton and Holbein watercolors, and
Uniball waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lb. Fabriano Artistico
cold press fine grain 100% cotton watercolor paper
also online at Leslie's Saeta's January 2015's 30 Paintings in 30 Days HERE

framed, sold framed, $100 plus $5.50 sales tax plus $9.50 shipping = $115.00

My Museum Date

by Bruce McMillan

I mingled through the Friday night flow
of museum viewers, so many of them coupled.
I was alone as usual until I was startled;
there she was, my surprise date, Rosina Ferrara,
who I'd beheld so many times online.
She lives in Denver now, not Capri,
and here she was, our first meeting
in Portland Maine at the museum
on our art match dot come date.
I was blown away, it was such a surprise
and I said to myself, or did I say it aloud,
"You look so much like your picture."

poem © 2015 Bruce McMillan 
not for reuse without permission

Rosina Ferrara, Head of a Capri Girl, 1878

John Singer Sargent, United States (born Italy), 1856-1925

Oil on board, 25.1 cm x 32.7 cm

The Berger Collection at the Denver Art Museum, Denver CO

"Internationally renowned for large-scale and fashionable elegant portraits of social elites, the cosmopolitan artist John singer Sargent traveled extensively throughout his life. This intimate study depicts Rosina Ferrara, whom he met on the island of Capri of the coast of Naples, and it inscribed to Frank Hyde, a fellow artist who made the introduction. Ferrara became Sargent's frequent model and muse. More a sketch that a finished painting, this work combines careful brushwork in the depiction of Rosina's delicate feature with freely drawn outlines describing her back and upper body."

"To my friend Hyde

souvenir of John S. Sargent

Capri 1878"

Read more about Rosina Ferrara at Wiki HERE

Note: I wrote another poem in March 2014 about Rosina using
my blog commenting pseudonym, Art Maine, on the drawing
Celeste Bergin did of Rosina, my poem comment and her art HERE.