Della Shull was one of a number of women artists who studied with Robert Henri, the dynamic leader of the group that exhibited under the name ‘The Eight’ at Macbeth Gallery, and the leader of the Ashcan school. Little documentation survives regarding Shull’s career, though we know that she traveled to Paris in the company of Henri and his wife in the 1890s and that she, like Henri, also studied with William Merritt Chase. She accompanied Chase to Monterey, California and became one of the many plein-air painters working in a loose, painterly idiom related to the outdoor aesthetic of the French Impressionists.

Our painting is a rare self-portrait of the artist at full length, presumably studying her own likeness in the mirror as she contemplates the next stroke of the brush. The closed circuit of the self-portrait, which implies that the canvas in the painting is the painting that we look upon, is a metaphor for self-reflexivity. Shull’s detachment from her own body is communicated by the analytical gaze that she casts upon her reflection. The bold palette and loose brushwork were remarked upon by critics, who praised her for her “vivid color” and “natural animated gesture.”