Lilla Cabot Perry was born in 1848 into a prominent Boston family. As a young wife in the later decades of the 19^th century, Perry travelled widely across Europe with her family, visiting and studying paintings in Paris and Munich, as well as in Italy, England and Spain. She first encountered the impressionist style in 1889 when she came across the work of Claude Monet. Perry went on to befriend the famous painter and rented a summer house near his at Giverny for many years. Monet often gave Perry advice on her paintings and she in turn collected in works, promoting them upon her return to the United States. In 1897, Perry’s husband took a position as an English professor in Tokyo and the family moved to Japan, giving the artist direct exposure to the Japanese prints and textiles that had greatly influenced the impressionists. After returning permanently to Boston in 1908, Perry supported her family by painting commissioned portraits.

This painting, executed in 1915, manifests Perry’s American, French, and Japanese influences. Though apparently a Western family, the mother in the composition wears a kimono and the golden floral folding screen in the background further suggests an Asian aesthetic. Perry applies her lightly impressionistic hand to a quintessentially American family portrait.

Lilla Cabot Perry’s works may be found in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., among others.