Laura Coombs Hills (1859–19520
Watercolor on ivory; 5 3/4 × 4 1/4 in. (14.6 × 10.8 cm)
The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, gift of the Estate of Belle da Costa Greene, 1950; AZ164
The only known painting of Belle da Costa Greene is a watercolor miniature on ivory by the Boston artist Laura Coombs Hills (1859–1952). Greene is also is known to have sat for her friend Everett Shinn (1876–1953) and the Peruvian-born artist Carlos Baca-Flor (1869–1941), who also painted several portraits of J. Pierpont Morgan, but none of these portraits of Greene survive.
On November 12, 1909, Greene told Berenson, “I am having my portrait painted & will send you a photo of it when finished.” A few months later, on February 24, 1910, she wrote, “I am having my portrait painted in the Spanish shawl that the Big Chief gave me – it is very tedious & tiresome work and I shall be glad when it is finished. . . .” And in December 1911, a reporter for the Sunday Press described Everett Shinn “in his Waverley Place studio applying fixative to a dashing Carmen-like portrait of Miss Belle Green[e].” Shinn’s portrait of Greene was likely the work depicting her in a shawl she had received as a gift from “the Big Chief” (Greene’s affectionate nickname for her employer, J. Pierpont Morgan).
She describes her sittings for Baca-Flor in the following letters:
BG to BB, 6/7/10 (67): “Baca-Flor is doing a large portrait of me [illegible deletion] now and I think it will be quite exceptional. He is painting me in an Egyptian blue gauzy arrangement of his own design & he is so enthusiastic about it that he hardly gives me a moment’s peace – He made a wonderful portrait of Mr. Morgan last winter which has created quite a stir here & he is now painting Mr. Choate & old John Bigelow & is to do Harry Walters Jack Morgan & numerous others in the fall”
BG to BB, 11/22/10 (103): “& then Baca-Flor came in to beg me to come & see the gown for his portrait of me which had just arrived from Worth. He was much excited about it & says it will be wonderful on me – but as it is a series of greens & blacks I do not see how that is possible”
