Portrait of the Artist's Niece, Dorothy

Portrait of the Artist's Niece Dorothy, painted in 1917 by Frank Dicksee, is a late family portrait that shows the artist in a more intimate mode than his large exhibition pieces. By 1917 Dicksee was in his sixties, a leading figure in British academic art circles — he would become President of the Royal Academy seven years later. Portraits of family members were a constant thread throughout the careers of Victorian and Edwardian academic painters: they provided subjects who were always available, who could be posed for extended periods, and who represented a relationship of genuine affection rather than commercial commission. The First World War, ongoing in 1917, casts an oblique shadow over the simple domestic subject of a girl's portrait: the innocence being depicted was under pressure from the largest conflict in human history. Dicksee's late portraits show a somewhat freer touch than his elaborately constructed historical paintings, demonstrating the range of his technical

Oil on canvas with a somewhat looser, less elaborately finished surface than Dicksee's major exhibition pieces. The portrait is likely conceived as an intimate private work rather than a public exhibition statement.